My tiny Hispa dish (through window!)

[Skip Channel]

A few years ago I had an indoor dish. It was a 1m tied to a computer swivel chair. After a while I got the hang of how far to move it left and right and how to tilt it slightly forward or backward to get sats from 42E to 15W. There were a few others on that forum that many of us visit who reported setting up a Sky minidish inside, some of them fixed to a wooden plinth or attached to a tripod stand etc.

You people were my inspiration. Well, 'inspiration' may be too strong a word - I'd thought about trying a dish indoors before those threads but dishes used to cost a fair bit and it seemed a waste of money if it didn't work. And as it seemed unlikely to work... well you get the idea! You indoor "pioneers" paved the way for numerous other outdoor-challenged satellite hungry individuals! You proved it could be done!

Unfortunately my dish is never gonna be capable of getting much of what you got and I just don't have the room for a metre dish in me bedroom! But, to blow my own trumpet (ooh er) I believe my setup is probably one of the neatest bedroom install the world has ever seen! ;)

I'm tempted to get another one or two if I can find them cheap enough. I also bought one of those dishes for a mate. I had to try it out to see if it worked okay (I bought it s/h) and had the two on the window sill running through a DiSEqC switch with one pointed to Hispasat and the other to Hotbird. It got me thinking! I'm getting Hotbird sorted for the outside dish and I intend to leave the Hispa dish stationary - so it'd be good to have another dish to swing around to 5 west or 5 east when I feel like it. ;)

And if you close the curtains no one can see in the window or see your dish.It's amazing how well it sometimes (but not always) works thru D/G.

Yeah, it works great with my curtains closed! Also works great through my parents' net curtains and their D/G.

Skip even asked some questions at the time about it.

I sure did - here's a belated thanks:-thumbup

 

[Skip Channel]

Sky said it was imposile to lign a mini dish up without the use of a sat metre.. and they where proved wrong..

I know of someone who worked for SiHS who was sent out with *no* satellite meter. He's superiors knew this and just told him to get on with it! This was back in the analogue/Sky Digital switch and the customers were all upgrades (so he was able to use their analogue receivers to manually find the one analogue testcard at 28 east!).

 

[Skip Channel]

Here's some closeups of my dish's LNB and how close the protruding part is to the window.

I want to swap the existing LNB for a twin - problem is all the twin/quad LNBs I've seen are pretty long. I don't want to have to move the dish further back from the window (cos as you can see it sits nicely on the sill!), so does anyone know of any suitable twins/quads?

 

[Jeff_19341]

Very nice Skip Channel, Have you ever thought of going motorised indoors with your dish? That would save you getting up out of your armchair to change satellites.
:-hny

 

[Skip Channel]

If I had a conservatory or some big french/sliding doors! All I got is this lousy window!

I'm happy enough with this staying put on 30w and my outside dish providing 28e, 19.2 (and soon) 13e. I reckon that's four of the best orbital positions for the UK (although 1 west and Arabsat would be nice!).

 

[Jeff_19341]

I only wondered. Back a few years ago when the debate was going on about dishes indoors I got a mini-dish from the local dump and tried it out myself. Having floor to ceiling and wall to wall D/G windows to my SE east facing lounge with a plastic conservatory at the back of that. I managed to get signals from 36East to 30West, walls and hedges stopped any other signals. I had thought of useing the 85cm dish and a motor inside, IMHO no different to having a telescope indoors, but decided against it in the end, the outside set was working OK. Now that we are allowed up to 1m dish I am now legal.
:-hny

 

[Skip Channel]

The trouble is I only have this small window and it is split up into smaller panes. I reckon if I only had the one pane it'd be suitable for a motorised or multi-feed dish but those chunky plastic/PVC and metal bits get in the way!

I guess if I only had the one big pane it would be one big pain to open!

Interestingly enough the dish works quite well upto 2 metres from the window. Of course as the dish is offset, not prime focas, it practically has to be on the floor to "see" through the glass. I was thinking that the further awy the dish is from the window the less of a problem the panes may be. My reasoning is probably unsound but I saw how the sun projects on to my wall and projects the image/shadow of the window outline on my wall.

But then the further the dish is away from the window the less of the arc it can see. FWIW 5/8w is roughly straight out the window.

 

[T_G]

I haven't figured out how to open it any more (and it would open up the wrong way anyway)!

Well, you could use a big hammer, the downside is it is irreversible :-sugar
Nice setup you got there! I suppose you could try a biger dish for better reception, but I suppose there is a limit what you can have inside without it taking over the room. And if there is a Mrs Skip Channel she probably would not be happy...

Also: Paint something on the dish so anybody looking inside will see it. A face or something.

 

[Skip Channel]

Well, you could use a big hammer, the downside is it is irreversible :-sugar

Nah, I'll just wait for the local kids to do it! They broke the opposite pane last year. Now if only they could do this one I could get that plastic glass put up instead...

Nice setup you got there! I suppose you could try a biger dish for better reception, but I suppose there is a limit what you can have inside without it taking over the room. And if there is a Mrs Skip Channel she probably would not be happy....

Unfortuneatly (or should that be - fortunately!) there is no missus. But I believe my dish would meet the requirements of my mum and sisters - in other words I'll be able to keep my bedroom door open when they come around!

Also: Paint something on the dish so anybody looking inside will see it. A face or something.

It's tempting but some of the locals seem paranoid enough as it is! :-googly

 

[spiney]

yes, great stuff! I get Astra1/Astra2/Hotbird (some transponders!) on a 43cm Sky minidish pointing through (double glazed) window, in Midlands.

It's worth pointing out that sat signals will travel through window glass, as many people aren't allowed dishes, so this may be a solution if your window's facing approximately south(ish).

A minidish is easy to use like this, just rest it on any surface - table, floor etc - with a book underneath the lnb arm to adjust elevation, works fine.

 

[moffatt]

The only south-facing window on my house faces the wall of another house!

 

[Skip Channel]

Still might not be a problem for an offset dish. My inside Sky dish appears to be looking at my radiator/wall when I know it's really "looking" towards the top of my window.

 

[Topper]

Does this help you to visulaise how the signal arrives on an offset dish?

 

[Skip Channel]

That helped a lot. As did the picture of an upside down dish that someone from another forum helpfully posted. Now I have this setup (see atttached thumbnails) and am getting amazing results on 5 west on the minidish. 8w, and 5e are coming in a lot stronger than they did before when I had that dish the right way up!

FWIW 5w comes in so strongly I can get that satellite when the dish is pointed at 8w (although to get both at the same time I do have to sacrifice a bit of signal strength/quality on both).

 

[Topper]

I'm glad it helped.... I see you have gone all out with the sky dish and gone for the modern approach.....upside down balanced on a couple of dog eared paperbacks. No cats dogs or children in this house then

 

[Jeff_19341]

Well done Skip, "I'm lovin it". Please paint smilies on the dishes to get the neighbours really wondering what's going on
Cheers

 

[kamaleon]

way to go skip ;)

(btw did you already get a twin lnb? i'm thinkin of doin the same ting for my porty dish - been chekin out some mti blue line ones on ebay).

How much do you recommend the mesh sky dish as opposed to a solid one (of the same size)? i'm weary if the mesh does a good job at concentrating waves...

 

[Skip Channel]

Nah, still haven't got a twin LNB. I'm still deciding how I'm having things with my complete setup and how it's all going to be DiSEqC-ed and cabled up! Still can't find any suitable twins for the dish either (they can't protude too much or they won't fit in the window)

Right now I have an outside dish which gets Astra 1 and 2 and the LNB for Astra 2 is a twin. I want to add Hotbird to the dish outside. That's not too complicated.... but here's the thing, I want my indoors Hispasat dish and the indoors minidish DiSECq-ed together and then have two feeds of each available to my twin tuner Fortec PVR and of couse a seperate Astra 2 feed for my Sky digibox.

I've also got a SkyStar1 PCI card to add into the mix but I think I'dd be happy enough keeping that as it is - receiving the looped output of one of the LNB inputs on the Fortec PVR.

And to add to all this I can't afford to get a professional in to do a decent job of the cabling and Hotbird LNBs (I live on the first floor of a apartment so I can't keep going out to tweak!).

Oh, and finally... I got around to trying the Porty upside down last night. I couldn't get reception, but then I didn't try hard enough! I thought it would be easier than the Sky dish but I was wrong. Even the multitude of installation methods the Porty dish boasts doesn't help in this very unorthodox setup!

 

[frund]

Very intersting and It has given me an idea my house faces south fixed dish on patio pole. I have to move it for footy now if it was inside.....hmmm

 

[2cvbloke]

I have an 80cm Lidl dish pointing towards Hispa, I did try my Porty kit dish but for some reason it just wouldn't work, I tried my Minidish too (on a rather dodgy tilt to compensate for the opposite skew needed for Hispa), it wasn't perfect but it worked. I've been trying to use my Porty dish indoors to get 5w too, but I think it's just the houses across the road getting in the way so it's too difficult to use my living room window. So far on the dish I have stuck a BSB logo and those bullet hole stickers on it, so it looks quite amusing, I'll have to get a pic of it as it is now, but not now cos it's too dark!!!

I'll just do some links to the pics as they're too big to attatch (1.3 megapixel Mobile phone... )

Pic1 Not long after I got it, I put a sock over the LNB to disguise it (paranoia you see, dodgy locals)
Pic2 The biggest BSB dish in the world....
Pic3 The PortyII signal meter
Pic4 Butt nekkid Pace MSS300, has a fault on Tuner1, 2 burnt out thingies on the bottom, still works on Tuner2 though...

And totally randomly, my christmas Minidish:

Pic5



Oh, and one for Analoguesat's BSB pages (the Squarial in Nelson, a slightly better picture):

BSB

EDIT:
The one that got away, nearly:

Pic6 My dish with a fleece jacket over it (the paranoia thing again) working perfectly behind my (tacky) curtains (I was playing on my PS2 when I took this), at the time of the picture I had (going top to bottom) my PortyII, Pace MSS300 and Amstrad DRX100 (melted front panel, DS users know why...) Digibox next to my TV. And yes, that's my excuse for a kitchen on the left....