Nick -D-vB
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- Sep 8, 2004
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Hi all,
After having to watch the cup final in SD yesterday I have finally cracked! )(-red
I can’t install a dish on my flat (luddite land-lord etc) but I am hoping to be able to perch a dish on my window sill occasionally when there is something on BBC / ITV HD I really want to watch. I think I have a clear line of site to Astra 28.8 and there are several dishes on flats near to mine that I assume are working (have asked their owners to split the feed to me but they are not interested, worried about sky warranty bollocks etc)
When I am able to install a permanent rig I’ll get some decent kit but for this experiment a mate at a local electronics shop has sorted me out a few bits and bobs for free. Beggars can’t be choosers so…
I have an old 50cm(?) Sky analogue dish but that is really too big for the window sill so he also gave me a Sky minidish which I would much rather use. That has a Cambridge industries “Geo Universal G88” digital elliptical LNB fitted to it but it looks a bit battered, and he couldn’t say for sure if it was working, so he also gave me a Skyware SX1019/S - but am I right in thinking that this just wouldn’t work, or would be to hard to align by hand, on the minidish?
Just to make matters worse the minidish looks a little bit warped on one corner, it is *very* slight (and could actually just be my eyes) would this drastically effect the performance of the dish?
Also, according to:
http://clarkson-uk.com/find-a-sat/
My elevation angle needs to be 24.74, I know the dish I have was originally installed just a few miles away but the angle seems to be set to 35 degrees??? (when the wall mount bar is horizontal) there is no arrow as a marker to I assume it is measured from the centre of the fixing bolt?
In terms of cable I have a ~10m length of thick high-grade NTL cable (copper core + silver foil shield) would this be OK to use for the time being? It also has a join in it (using a passive female-female “grub”) would this be a big problem?
I don’t have a decoder yet (saving up for a Dreambox) but have two DVB-S cards for my PC (FireDTV + TechnoTrend / Nova-S) I naively assumed that I might be able to align the dish using the software signal bars or SatFinder software (BDA drivers just lie about signal stats btw!) but after 3 hours of fruitless “waggling” I am going down to Maplin to get a meter / buzzer, don’t have a lot to spend so will one of these do the trick:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=48325&doy=17m5
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=48328&&source=14&doy=18m5
I have got the rough angle by eye from the dishes next door but I don’t have a compass / spirit level to hand, do I stand a hope in hell without them? Just to make things even more complicated there is a row of trees about 10 meters from the window I need to use, they are not very dense but are about 5 meters higher than the window. 8(
But, a flat on the ground floor (almost directly bellow me) has a dish that seems to be pointing directly into these trees, if they are getting a single I assume I should be ok on the 3rd floor up ??? Also, if the dish is sitting right on the edge of the window sill how much clearance would there need to be directly above the dish as the roof over-hangs a foot or so.
Sorry for all the daft questions and extraneous information but I’m getting nowhere fast, I have read through the guides posted on here and other places but they are all assuming a permanent install from a fixed bracket.
I know I might seem naïve to attempt this, all you guys with proper rigs must just think I’m wasting my time, but it’s the best I can do for the time being. If anyone can help clear up some of these questions or give me a few pointers I would really appreciate it.
I’m going to give it another shot today so I look forward to hearing any suggestions ASAP.
Thanks,
Nick,
After having to watch the cup final in SD yesterday I have finally cracked! )(-red
I can’t install a dish on my flat (luddite land-lord etc) but I am hoping to be able to perch a dish on my window sill occasionally when there is something on BBC / ITV HD I really want to watch. I think I have a clear line of site to Astra 28.8 and there are several dishes on flats near to mine that I assume are working (have asked their owners to split the feed to me but they are not interested, worried about sky warranty bollocks etc)
When I am able to install a permanent rig I’ll get some decent kit but for this experiment a mate at a local electronics shop has sorted me out a few bits and bobs for free. Beggars can’t be choosers so…
I have an old 50cm(?) Sky analogue dish but that is really too big for the window sill so he also gave me a Sky minidish which I would much rather use. That has a Cambridge industries “Geo Universal G88” digital elliptical LNB fitted to it but it looks a bit battered, and he couldn’t say for sure if it was working, so he also gave me a Skyware SX1019/S - but am I right in thinking that this just wouldn’t work, or would be to hard to align by hand, on the minidish?
Just to make matters worse the minidish looks a little bit warped on one corner, it is *very* slight (and could actually just be my eyes) would this drastically effect the performance of the dish?
Also, according to:
http://clarkson-uk.com/find-a-sat/
My elevation angle needs to be 24.74, I know the dish I have was originally installed just a few miles away but the angle seems to be set to 35 degrees??? (when the wall mount bar is horizontal) there is no arrow as a marker to I assume it is measured from the centre of the fixing bolt?
In terms of cable I have a ~10m length of thick high-grade NTL cable (copper core + silver foil shield) would this be OK to use for the time being? It also has a join in it (using a passive female-female “grub”) would this be a big problem?
I don’t have a decoder yet (saving up for a Dreambox) but have two DVB-S cards for my PC (FireDTV + TechnoTrend / Nova-S) I naively assumed that I might be able to align the dish using the software signal bars or SatFinder software (BDA drivers just lie about signal stats btw!) but after 3 hours of fruitless “waggling” I am going down to Maplin to get a meter / buzzer, don’t have a lot to spend so will one of these do the trick:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=48325&doy=17m5
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=48328&&source=14&doy=18m5
I have got the rough angle by eye from the dishes next door but I don’t have a compass / spirit level to hand, do I stand a hope in hell without them? Just to make things even more complicated there is a row of trees about 10 meters from the window I need to use, they are not very dense but are about 5 meters higher than the window. 8(
But, a flat on the ground floor (almost directly bellow me) has a dish that seems to be pointing directly into these trees, if they are getting a single I assume I should be ok on the 3rd floor up ??? Also, if the dish is sitting right on the edge of the window sill how much clearance would there need to be directly above the dish as the roof over-hangs a foot or so.
Sorry for all the daft questions and extraneous information but I’m getting nowhere fast, I have read through the guides posted on here and other places but they are all assuming a permanent install from a fixed bracket.
I know I might seem naïve to attempt this, all you guys with proper rigs must just think I’m wasting my time, but it’s the best I can do for the time being. If anyone can help clear up some of these questions or give me a few pointers I would really appreciate it.
I’m going to give it another shot today so I look forward to hearing any suggestions ASAP.
Thanks,
Nick,