Positioning a satellite dish?

[Eddy]

Hi.

Overheard the man supervising our builders saying, "Don't you worry about putting the satellite dish back, we'll get the SKY man in to do that"!

What's happening is that the satellite dish is currently attached to the chimney but after the building works have finished it needs to be repositioned down the other end of the house - where it can still face the same direction.

Now I would have thought that re-positioning it is a fairly simple matter of attaching the appropriate fixing to the side of the house, popping the dish onto it, and then (most importantly) getting the angle right.

At worst, getting the angle right (in my thinking) can be accomplished by having one person up the ladder and another person reporting on the TV reception from the TV end of the cable. In other words: a fairly straightforward DIY job

. . or am I wrong and a no-doubt expensive "SKY man" needs to visit?

Eddy.

[Broadback]

Yes you can do it yourself, remember though there are two adjustments, vertical and horizontal. Also be sure you are setting it up on the correct satellite! If you can see the TV and set the Sky box to the signal strength option you can fine tune it with this, but you have to get a reasonable signal first. What I did was set up mine outside fixed on a workmate where I could see the TV. When I got it at its optimum I used a compass to find the direction it was pointing then made a simple device from card a piece of string and a weight to get the tilt angle. When I fixed it on the wall I used these to position the dish, then fine tuned it with my wife's help.

[adder1969]

The sky satellite is so strong you'll be laughing in no time especially if you've still got some basic marks on the bracket. Google it.

[Mike Scott]

Broadback wrote: ...

Better still, buy a cheap signal strength meter off ebay (or pay a bit more from screwfix) to take up with you - you don't need the TV or anyone to shout up. When I did a test rig (dish clamped onto a workmate on the garage roof), it took literally

[Dave Osborne]

I have to say in my case that connecting the LNB to a pro signal meter and aligning dish took about 5 minutes. Total on-site time including getting ladders on and off van - 15 minutes. They were done and packing up before I had time to get my shoes and coat on.

Trying to do the same job with a satellite receiver (Panasonic, in my case) was a right PITA, as the signal strength/quality meters in the setup page are very slow to respond. Fortunatley, the local aerial man is a mate and he owed me a favour, so I don't know what he would have charged.

Sister just moved house (to a bungalow in a dip) and paid a local contractor over £300 for a 14-element aerial, 4-way masthead amp and downleads to two locations. £175.00 for the aerial and a 10 foot mast and chimney lashing kit was expensive I thought. Still, she moved on Friday, started on the Yellow Pages on Saturday Morning, got a commitment to attend between 11.00 am and 3.00 pm same day. Guy (nice chap, very knowledgeable and competent) turned up about 12.30p.m. and was all done and dusted well before dark. So a good result, if expensive.

[RobertL]

Hide quoted text -

if you are going to bolt it onto a wall that is parallel to the wall it was bolted to before you will not need to adjust anything, with luck

I'd agree with other that adjusting it using the TV is difficult. Buy a sig strength meter, preferably one with a 'bleep'. I think you'll need some self-amalagamating tape to seal up the cable afterwards also. You must not let rainwater get into that cable.

Robert

[Eddy]

Thanks, everyone, for the help.

OK, a signal strength meter, the right tape, and an extra length of good quality cable, compass etc . . . it should be a jolly afternoon's entertainment! But if it saves us a couple of hundred quid, great!

Thanks a lot.

Eddy.

[Cicero]

================================== If you have a spirit level with an angle adjustment at one end you can use it to find the correct angle of elevation. Tape your level to a short straight length of wood (long enough to bridge the edges of the dish) and set to the required angle.

Cic.

[Andy Hall]

There's a really simple solution.

Call up Sky and navigate through the voice menus until you get to the one to cancel the subscription. Tell them that the dish has had to be removed because of building work and that you are debating whether to cancel the subscription because of the cost of having the dish reinstalled.

There is a very high probability that they will send somebody to do it for nothing, and even more of a probability if cable passes your house.

[adder1969]

It's a total piece of cake.

[Andy Hall]

Possibly.

However, there is no need to spend an afternoon or a couple of hundred quid, when a five minute call to Sky will resolve the issue without either of these.

[adder1969]

Wouldn't you still have to spend an afternoon (or more) waiting for them to turn up?

[Andy Hall]

You might well, but I can think of plenty of profitable things to do during an afternoon which doesn't involve climbing around on roofs.

[Eddy]

Hee, hee, hee. No doubt absolutely true, Adder! And out here in isolated South West Shropshire all visitors get absolutely bloody lost . . . . so he'd be doubly late!

Eddy.