Hi,

A strange question....

I have had new aerials and sat dish installed by a local guy who
turned up in a sky emblazened van so assume he is one of their
subcontractors. I didn't have a box to test the dish but the aerials
seem fine.

Anyway, I have borrowed a sky box to test the dish and it doesn't
work. Cutting a long story short, after a bit of investigation, the
dish is pointing straight into my roof. When I went back to the
fitter, he said "it rides the roof. that wouldn't be the problem".
Can this be true?

On a sky+ box I get no reception and on a normal sky box get around 1
block (say 20%).

Any help appreciated.

thanks

Lee.

"Lee Nowell" wrote in message
...
Hi,

A strange question....

I have had new aerials and sat dish installed by a local guy who
turned up in a sky emblazened van so assume he is one of their
subcontractors. I didn't have a box to test the dish but the aerials
seem fine.

Anyway, I have borrowed a sky box to test the dish and it doesn't
work. Cutting a long story short, after a bit of investigation, the
dish is pointing straight into my roof. When I went back to the
fitter, he said "it rides the roof. that wouldn't be the problem".
Can this be true?

On a sky+ box I get no reception and on a normal sky box get around 1
block (say 20%).

Any help appreciated.

thanks

Lee.

As far as I know - not being an expert - with a satellite dish, you have to
have completely unobstructed line of sight to the satellite. This is about
30 deg above the horizon, more or less to the south - you can get the exact
location at various places on the net.

No doubt someone else will come along with the exact answer.

The reason I know this, I had a question/investigation about the siting of
my dish when moving into a new house recently.

Barb

"Barb" wrote in message
...

"Lee Nowell" wrote in message
...
Hi,

A strange question....

I have had new aerials and sat dish installed by a local guy who
turned up in a sky emblazened van so assume he is one of their
subcontractors. I didn't have a box to test the dish but the aerials
seem fine.

Anyway, I have borrowed a sky box to test the dish and it doesn't
work. Cutting a long story short, after a bit of investigation, the
dish is pointing straight into my roof. When I went back to the
fitter, he said "it rides the roof. that wouldn't be the problem".
Can this be true?

On a sky+ box I get no reception and on a normal sky box get around 1
block (say 20%).

Any help appreciated.

thanks

Lee.

As far as I know - not being an expert - with a satellite dish, you have
to have completely unobstructed line of sight to the satellite. This is
about 30 deg above the horizon, more or less to the south - you can get
the exact location at various places on the net.


Remember that probably you have an offset dish, which looks higher than you
might expect.

http://www.dishpointer.com/ shows the correct direction and elevation.

However if the receivers that you are using work elsewhere then I would ask
the fitter to return.


--
Michael Chare

On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 11:42:47 -0000, Michael Chare wrote:

Remember that probably you have an offset dish, which looks higher than
you might expect.

If it's a sky minidish then it will be an offset type.

http://www.dishpointer.com/ shows the correct direction and elevation.

Or check that the dish easily catches full sun at about 10 past 10
GMT. That will check azimuth but not elevation. But as we are only
just past the equinox the sun will only be a little above the
satellite constellation at that time.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Mar 17, 3:12*pm, "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:
On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 11:42:47 -0000, Michael Chare wrote:
Remember that probably you have an offset dish, which looks higher than
you might expect.

If it's a sky minidish then it will be an offset type.

http://www.dishpointer.com/shows the correct direction and elevation.

Or check that the dish easily catches full sun at about 10 past 10
GMT. That will check azimuth but not elevation. But as we are only
just past the equinox the sun will only be a little above the
satellite constellation at that time.

--
Cheers
Dave.

thanks all for your replies. The dish I have is sort of ovalish with
a quad LNB if that helps. When I say the dish is pointing to my roof,
the ridge of the roof is a couple of feet higher than the top of the
dish with the slope about 2' away..

Lee Nowell wrote:
On Mar 17, 3:12 pm, "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:
On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 11:42:47 -0000, Michael Chare wrote:
Remember that probably you have an offset dish, which looks higher
than you might expect.

If it's a sky minidish then it will be an offset type.

http://www.dishpointer.com/shows the correct direction and
elevation.

Or check that the dish easily catches full sun at about 10 past 10
GMT. That will check azimuth but not elevation. But as we are only
just past the equinox the sun will only be a little above the
satellite constellation at that time.

A picture would be a big help. As others have said, the angle of reception
isn't necessarily the obvious direction that the dish is pointing.

(uk.tech.digital-tv added to groups)

Tim

On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:12:09 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:

On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 11:42:47 -0000, Michael Chare wrote:

Remember that probably you have an offset dish, which looks higher than
you might expect.

If it's a sky minidish then it will be an offset type.

http://www.dishpointer.com/ shows the correct direction and elevation.

Or check that the dish easily catches full sun at about 10 past 10
GMT. That will check azimuth but not elevation. But as we are only
just past the equinox the sun will only be a little above the
satellite constellation at that time.


Er, I think you will find the equinox is still several days away. ;-)

When I went back to the
fitter, he said "it rides the roof. that wouldn't be the problem".
Can this be true?

No, it can't. It's a complete fabrication or a complete misunderstanding on
his behalf.

As correctly pointed out elsewhere here, there needs to be an unobstructed
path from the dish to the satellite. A dish might be "offset" by ten or
fifteen degrees or so, so the angle that the dish is actually squinting at
will be that 10-15 degs higher than it first appears to be "looking" at.

http://www.satellite-calculations.co...ffset_dish.gif

It sounds like your dish installer either made a mistake or didn't bother or
the thing's gone and slipped on its mount and is now trying to peer through
the roof of your house rather than looking over the top of it.

DDS

Lee Nowell formulated on Wednesday :
Anyway, I have borrowed a sky box to test the dish and it doesn't
work. Cutting a long story short, after a bit of investigation, the
dish is pointing straight into my roof. When I went back to the
fitter, he said "it rides the roof. that wouldn't be the problem".
Can this be true?

On a sky+ box I get no reception and on a normal sky box get around 1
block (say 20%).

We used to have analogue Sky, with its dish at the front - then when
they went digital the SKY fitter replaced the old dish with new in the
same location. We soon found it didn't work very well, because in that
location due to the slightly different satellite position, it was
looking at the sat through the eaves and gutters. So I would suggest
that at least some of the dish and antenna fitters might not be the
sharpest tools in the box.

I moved it temporarily to the rear, just to prove box and dish were not
at fault and called them back to fit it properly.

Unlike antennas, height of the dish does not matter - they work just as
well on the ground, but they do need to have an absolutely clear view
of the sky. Even leaves on a tree can severally affect reception.

It is not that difficult to get it right - get the installer back.

--
Regards,
Harry (M1BYT) (L)
http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk

"Lee Nowell" wrote in message ...
Hi,

A strange question....

I have had new aerials and sat dish installed by a local guy who
turned up in a sky emblazened van so assume he is one of their
subcontractors. I didn't have a box to test the dish but the aerials
seem fine.

Anyway, I have borrowed a sky box to test the dish and it doesn't
work. Cutting a long story short, after a bit of investigation, the
dish is pointing straight into my roof. When I went back to the
fitter, he said "it rides the roof. that wouldn't be the problem".
Can this be true?

On a sky+ box I get no reception and on a normal sky box get around 1
block (say 20%).

Any help appreciated.

thanks

Lee.
Hi Lee. Mini dishes have an offset focus. They look as if they are aimed at the horizon, but
in fact they are receiving signals from satellites about 22deg above the horizon. (+/- a degree or so, depending
on where you are in the UK)
So the question you need to ask yourself is this
If you imagine a string stretched out from the bottom of your dish at an angle of 22deg from horizontal
will the roof or wall be in its way?

All this is a bit academic, as you have told us it doesn't work. Whatever the reason, you need to
get the installer back.
--
Graham.

%Profound_observation%

Even leaves on a tree can severally affect reception.

Jointly?

On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:36:26 +0000, Bruce wrote:

Or check that the dish easily catches full sun at about 10 past 10
GMT. That will check azimuth but not elevation. But as we are only
just past the equinox the sun will only be a little above the
satellite constellation at that time.

Er, I think you will find the equinox is still several days away. ;-)

Er, yeah, wasn't very awake yesterday morning. I'd looked at a sun
outage calculator and that had the outage for Astra 2D about a week
ago. So what I said about the sun being above the position at that
time does still apply.

--
Cheers
Dave.