Installing a Sky dish - DIY or not ?

[Adrian]

Hi all We're moving house in the near future. We already have a Sky+ box.

Was wondering whether fitting a Sky dish in the new house is considered to be a fairly easy 'diy' task - or if it's worth 'getting a man in' .

I've fitted terrestrial aerials many times before, and I watched what the Sky-monkey did when he fitted this little dish - didn't look over-complicated. I guess I'd need to purchase an in-line signal meter, plus a new quad-lnb dish & cable - dishes seem to be about £20 and meters under £10 (both eBay prices)

Anybody done this successfully ? Any advice - anything to avoid ??

Thanks Adrian

[Steven Campbell]

There are loads of sites on the net giving advice on this.

mate bought one of those signal meters off ebay and ended up not using it as he got better results from the signal strength meters built into the sky system.

[robert]

Had no problem setting up a couple of dishes using a Lidl inline "audio meter" and the SKY test signal for fine tuning when using a small dish.

Remember you only need sight of the satellite from the dish , it doesnt have to be high up - just high enough to clear trees, walls etc.

Robert Robert

[Dave Liquorice]

Simple. The hardest part will be the cable routing from where the dish has to be so it can see the satellites and your digibox. The easy rough =

guide to where the dish has to be is somewhere sun lit at about 1020GMT =

(1120BST). At this time of year the sun will be above the location of th= e satellites at that time so make sure that there is a good clear view of =

the sky below the sun...

You might not need the signal meter but it does make things easy if bein= g able to view a TV showing the built in signal meters whilst up a ladder =

is tricky.

Add a reel of self amalgamating tape to the shopping list. Stretch (double its lenght) and wrap this from the threaded part of the LNB socket all round the connector and an inch over the outer jacket of the =

cable. Oh you'll need some F plugs as well, prefereably the right size for your cable.

Oh and sky dishes are offset, they are not looking where you think they =

are looking the dish itself is almost vertical (varies with your latitude) even though it's looking 30+ degrees above the horizon.

[dog-man]

It's easy, just take your time and make sure the pole is level.

If you don't have a signal meter, then a wet tea towel or similar will help to fine tune the dish when you have found the right satellite.

You cover part of the dish to weaken the signal, then gently move the dish for the best signal.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Yes, Sky analogue, Sky digital and before it a fully steerable dish. Digital is by far the easiest. If you are not moving more than a few miles distant....

Place a piece of wood horizontally across the face of the dish, against which you can place a compass to get the present dish bearing. Then use another bit of wood vertical against the dish - with a string and plumb line, mark the vertical offset. The H & V measurements should allow you to reset the dish near enough to get a signal when it is in place at its new location. The built in signal strength meter of the Sky box will then enable you to adjust it spot on, no need for a separate signal meter.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Adrian saying something like:

Piece of piss. All you need is a compass, a cheapy satfinder tone device and a bit of patience.

[Adrian]

Thanks for the comments. I guess the advantage of the signal meter is that you can use it while you are up the ladder - to avoid the old 'Golden Shot' dialogue (left a bit stop, right a bit stop..... and so on .....)

Adrian

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[Adrian]

OK - thanks. Yes - about the height of the dish - in the end the Sky chappie installed our dish just under the soffit of the bungalow - so it's no more than 7ft above the patio - but it does have a good clear view to the satellite....

Adrian

[Adrian]

OK

That's a clever trick ! Think I might shell out a tenner for the meter, though - apparently getting the TV back online is one of the 'priorities' once we get moved to our new house...

Adrian

[Adrian]

I think I've got that sussed. (From memory - the new house is in the far south-west of the Republic of Ireland, and I'm in Suffolk - but I think I can see/remember how the cable could run....

The house is facing more or less South - with the TV cabling needing to come down the East end of the place - should give nice short cable runs. New house - so don't want to go drilling too many holes !

Might be a good plan....

Got some of that already ! Great stuff

I was toying with the idea of being really 'cheap' and simply whipping out the dish & cable that we;ve just had installed here. Got the sky-chap to leave a fair bit of cable 'spare' up in the loft.... wouldn't be a dificult job to remove it all.... and the cable looks as if it would be quite long enough....

Hadn't thought of that - but I can see you're right !

Many thanks Adrian

[Adrian]

Thanks - nice plan - but the move is from East Suffolk to the far S-W of Ireland - so I'm not sure that the positioning of the dish here will be anything like I'll need over there...

No problem - the more I think about t the simpler it sounds (famous last words !)

Many thanks - I'll report back once the deed is done !

Adrian

>

[Adrian]

Well - I've already got one of those, and I can buy one of the others on eBay, and.... well - two out of three ain't bad

Many thanks - I'm sure it'll go like a dream !

Adrian

[Dave Liquorice]

Might be worth digging about on the web for footprint of Sky Digital constellation. The SW is probably OK, the SE might be another matter. A minor point is the legallity of receiving Sky over there?

You trust the connections made my a Sky installation monkey? Personally I wouldn't and having a Sky+ dish already installed on a property is tiny selling point. For the minima cost of parts I'd start with new and installed properly by myself.

The bracket fixed to the rear of the dish has a scale and numbers. Which I think refer to the elevation of the satellite, this strikes me as a tad daft as you have to work out the elevation given your location in latitude and longitude so why not just mark latitude on the bracket.

[tony sayer]

In article , Adrian writes

seems OK there..

I've done a few of these over time and I've never bothered with an alignment meter as the one in the digibox is fine.. note the Quality indicator and ASTRA 28.2 is about the brightest thing in the Sky!. Can't go wrong:)...

[Adrian]

HI Dave

On Sun, 20 Aug 2006 12:37:41 +0100 (BST), "Dave Liquorice" wrote: Hi Dave Thanks for the comments

Don't think it's illegal....? We had it installed over here in order to get some experience of Sky+ and to get the all-important 'English' Sky card - so you end up with the English mix of Ch4, 5 & so on....

Not really - but I'll probably be re-making them anyway....

Don't know about the selling point. I 'spose that of the new purchasers want to give me some money for the installation then I'll leave it behind - but if not then I'll UN-install it myself...... it's all at ground level anyway - means leaping about in the loft - but that's not a big issue...

Sounds way too easy ! I see from the footrpint maps that the west of Ireland is towards the edge of the 50cm dish footprint..... I'll have to look & see how big our existing dish is.....

Many thanks - it all looks fairly possible..... .....or at least, a great deal simplet than getting terrestrial Freeview was out here in the far East of Suffolk !

Thanks Adrian

[Adrian]

Doesn't look too bad, does it. We've got an uninterrupted view pretty much from West to East from the new house - so the 'bird' should be visible.....

Famous last words ! Might still buy the meter, though - moving will be stressful enough without playing the 'what's the signal like now...?' game......

Thanks Adrian

[Adrian]

On looking more closely at the Astra website - it seems to say that Ch4 & 5 are transmitted on the 'North beam' - which does suggest using at least a 60cm dish out in the far West of Ireland

Just been out & measured the existing dish - about 50cm side-to-side - Bother, said Pooh !!

Sounds like I'll need to find a new dish !

Regards Adrian

[Andy Hall]

There's a whole black industry around getting Sky reception in southern Spain - and that is much harder. SW Ireland should not be a problem.

However, if you are going to God's Own Country do you really want to have the crap that $ky dishes out (as it were)?

[Andy Hall]

On 2006-08-20 15:20:16 +0100, Adrian s

I would wait and get a 80 or 90 cm dish. IT would be better to do that than use one of the minidishes which may well be marginal at that location.

When the mist comes down over MacGillycuddy's Reeks (yes they do exist) and the received signal drops , you will be glad you did this.

Then you can set yourself up with a pint of Liffey Water and wonder what this Divil's Window stuff was all about anyway.