Dodgy Aerial and Dish Installs , a Gallery.

Sponge Bob

This guy is a bit picky ..meaning he finds fault with pretty much everything.

Maybe someone should send him a pic of that tree mount dish in Wexford


http://www.wrightsaerials.tv/roguesgalleryview.html

heres a sample of true dodgyness

Rippy

Bill Wright is a legend. Yes he is picky, but he is also very good which gives him a right to be. I see plenty worse too. Shall we start our own Rogues Gallery ?
Here's one to kick it off.
'The patented 'Leeside' UHF/DVB-S antenna.:D

watty

Oddly, in that position the TV aerial may not affect the sat signal much due to dish ofset. The jammed in screwdriver (red handle) to adjust elevation/stop dish rocking is amusing.

P.S. I Think Wright is right and not too picky.

byte

Rippy wrote:

Bill Wright is a legend. Yes he is picky, but he is also very good which gives him a right to be. I see plenty worse too. Shall we start our own Rogues Gallery ?
Here's one to kick it off.
'The patented 'Leeside' UHF/DVB-S antenna.:D

LOL, that is dire!

I notice also, apart from the UHF aerial addition, the dish is making use of what seems to be a Thomson Sky Minidish LNB, and a screwdriver is used in favour of extra bolts to stop the bracket from moving! :eek:

lucernarian

That's in a league of its own. The red tape used for the LNB is a real touch of cheapness. it looks like only 1 or 2 of four bolts were used to fasten the bracket to the wall. There's nothing particularly bad in the Drogheda area, beyond using the wrong type aerial for Irish channel reception. But that's because higher standards are needed for getting reception from Kilkeel or Divis. I'll see what I can find.

Rippy

Could it be any worse? Well yes actually. Notice the lack of any self- amalgamating (or even red insulating) tape around the f connector.
The cheapie C/D contract aerial is correct for Spur Hill, even having correct polarity (horizontal). Unfortunatly Spur Hill is to the SW and the aerial is pointing South with the house shielding the aerial.
I sent this in to Bill Wright recently and he did not get back to me. Maybe he thinks it is a crazy Irish wind-up and not a genuine install! I took this last year, I must swing by there and see if it is still there.

Ulsterman 1690

A common one with VHF aerials is taking the advice about keeping the downlead short too literally and having the cable come diagonally from the dipole to the bottom of the mast in a straight line

on a windy day the insulation on the cable splits and rain gets in

Rippy

Rippy wrote:

The cheapie C/ D contract aerial is correct for Spur Hill, even having correct polarity (horizontal). Unfortunatly Spur Hill is to the SW and the aerial is pointing South with the house shielding the aerial.

Actually looking at it again, as the dish is presumably pointed SE and the aerial is at about 90deg. to the dish, he may just have LOS to Spur Hill. Still very crap though.

Sponge Bob

One could make an ICDG wiki page out of some of these beautys I suppose and ask Robin to link it

Rippy

Good idea Spoungey, could be a good educational resource as well as a bloody good laugh!
I now have the camera in the van ready to record dodginess.
In the meantime have a look at these (A mate of Bill Wright's apparently)
www.aerialsandtv.com/cowboyslocker.html
My favourite is the last one...A yard closer the transmitter... ROFL

Sponge Bob

Well if you simply post them with a county location and your "comment" I will ask watty if I can prepare the gallery for the wiki .

That tree mount dish in Wexford is a must but crap aerial installs and mmds installs are also most welcome

kmb

Hi Rippy,any idea when southcoast is pulling the plug on us in carrigaline?
Also i want to put the rte aerial in the attic and the southcoast one,will this work do you know?

regards,

Kieran

Ulsterman 1690

It depends.

With UHF the signal in your attic will only be a fraction of what youll get outside. plus some types of roof tile as well as metal objects in your attic (pipes and water tanks) can mess up the signal

Although If youre blessed with particularly strong Southcoast and RTE signals you might get away with it anyway.

In most cases though youre better off with an outside aerial

kmb

Hi,just fed up of crappy picture tbh as i see now that both the aerial weather caps are missing from the aerials.
And the water has probably shorted out contacts and ran inside the cable.
Also was using a televes booster and the 5 amp fuse keeps blowing.

is there a way to get replacement weather caps for the goldstar?? i think it is and the rte aerial?

Maybe i should get rippy to give me quote re.sorting out above been a carrigaline man also.



regds

kieran

Rippy

kmb wrote:

Hi Rippy,any idea when southcoast is pulling the plug on us in carrigaline?
Also i want to put the rte aerial in the attic and the southcoast one,will this work do you know?

regards,

Kieran

As Ulsterman said, reception inside the attic can vary enormously.
You may or may not get away with it. The only way to know is to give it a go.
Also accurate alignment is impossible without a signal meter. If you have lost your weather caps then yes, you will likely have water in your cables and diplexer. Masthead amp may still be OK. Never heard of a goldstar aerial.
I have been told that Analogue South Coast will continue until 'sometime next year'. How about getting your RTE aerial sorted and FTA satellite?

Ian

Ulsterman 1690

More for fans of dodgy install pic's

http://www.aerialsandtv.com/cowboyslocker.html

Why are southcoast closing their analouge service ? Is it to make way for the national DTT roll out (Do they know something we dont ?) or are they trying to force people to migrate to their digital microwave yoke

watty

They can't make any money from the analogue. How they managed to migrate from a deflector operator to being an MMDS pay TV operator on a band used by satellite beats me.

Either they should not have been allowed or there should have been industry consultation and open nationwide tender. The rule bending and favoritism takes the breath away.

kmb

I got a new colourking aerial and also a rte one but i dont know if the rte one is correct as i think i need c/d but dwyers electrical gave me a black tipped one,Docket says aeriaL J10 GROUP WB UHF BLACK.

Will this do for carrigaline?

Prices of aerials are scareingly cheap,rte was €6.70 inc. vat!!
I thought it would be a lot more!!

Regards,

Kieran

lawhec

Bill Wright is a great man to hear on the trade itself. To me, unlike some other gobsh*te whom I won't bother naming, he is very much worth listening to. I see he's taken a number of photos of aerial installiations on a trip to Ireland recently, he says they should be added to his website shortly.

Around here locally I can't say that I've seen too many downright shoddy installiations - I suppose that's down to most installers having years of dealing with installiations for RTÉ which often do need patience. The most common "fault" would often be the aerials stacked too closely together (a 3ft gap minimum is often recommended) which is often the case with the three-aerial setups that are common here (N.I. UHF, RoI UHF & RoI VHF).

Ulsterman 1690

dwyers electrical gave me a black tipped one,Docket says aeriaL J10 GROUP WB UHF BLACK.

Theyve sold you a "wideband" group W aerial

A group C/D would have more gain. Widebands should only be used in very strong signal areas

watty

Wideband aerials are very poor for Group A or top of D as they are really a slightly poor / flattened Group B/C. You can't break the laws of physics. A Log periodic, discone or Bicubic can be really wideband but the more gain you give a Yagi-Uda the narrower it gets.


I compared 3 pairs of 18 elements (A, B & C/D) connected via helical filters with top of range Triax and Kathrien A/B & Wideband. The 18 Element Blake is about 1/8th cost of the big so called 100 element and pair of them slightly better gain in each group.

Antenna

lawhec wrote:

Bill Wright is a great man to hear on the trade itself. To me, unlike some other gobsh*te whom I won't bother naming, he is very much worth listening to. I see he's taken a number of photos of aerial installiations on a trip to Ireland recently, he says they should be added to his website shortly.

Bill Wright's Irish 'Aerial Photography' is here:

http://s19.photobucket.com/albums/b191/L693MKY/Ireland%201/?start=40

lawhec, can you give us some clue as to who the gobsh*te you refer to is?
Is he someone who posts here?

watty

That question can't be answered.

Zaphod

Antenna wrote:

Bill Wright's Irish 'Aerial Photography' is here:

http://s19.photobucket.com/albums/b191/L693MKY/Ireland%201/?start=40

He has a great eye for these things! The 'dish on a pole' required some head for heights. And what's the likelihood, after all that effort, it's only aligned to 28E judging by the elevation?

Any ideas as to the purpose of the 'Dunquin mystery' antennas? Are muintir Dhún Chaoin secretly supporting the Echelon network?:D

Rippy

Had a phone call this morning:-

'My RTE's gone bad, but the South Coast is still OK. Can you have a look?'

I went out this afternoon and this is what I found.!:eek:

She will be having strong words with her wireless broadband provider on Monday.

Sponge Bob

and Lusk

why can they just share ??

Dunquin may be pointing to Inishvickillaune from where one of our most paranoid heads of state used to run the state for extended periods .

byte

Rippy wrote:

Had a phone call this morning:-

'My RTE's gone bad, but the South Coast is still OK. Can you have a look?'

I went out this afternoon and this is what I found.!:eek:

She will be having strong words with her wireless broadband provider on Monday.

Jaysus, that's dodgy alright. Seems they may have broken an element off that log perodic too for the broadband antenna.

lucernarian

SB, I'd say that's a phased array for picking up one of the UK txes. Beats me why they need such a large VHF aerial. I've seen those dish antennas being used in dublin to pick up Kilkeel, though I can't see why it would be needed in Lusk.

Ulsterman 1690

The VHF array in SB's picture is actually for FM (Band 2) radio

Looks like the UHF aerials are pointing at three different transmitters.

Is this thing actually a cable headend or on an individual house

byte

To_be_confirmed wrote:

SB, I'd say that's a phased array for picking up one of the UK txes.

Yeah, think so. The top 2 aerials in the array would need to be leveled again though!

Rippy

byte wrote:

Jaysus, that's dodgy alright. Seems they may have broken an element off that log perodic too for the broadband antenna.

Correct. They had snapped an element off. Strangely, only RTE1 on 175mhz was badly affected- NET2 on 199mhz was OK.

Anyway here's today's contribution. Apart from the awful mounting and flippy-flappy cable,the polarity is wrong ,should be vertical.

Antenna

Rippy wrote:

Anyway here's today's contribution. Apart from the awful mounting and flippy-flappy cable,the polarity is wrong ,should be vertical.

the polarity would be correct if its for Spur Hill? picture black and white - was it green colour code at the end ( Group C/d) I recognise some landmarks and it seems to be in the direction of Spur Hill rather than Collins Barracks?

Zaphod

Anyone know what are these antennas are for? They seem to be dotted around the country with quite a few years. Are they the internet/phone service from Chorus?

ethernet

Rippy wrote:

... Anyway here's today's contribution. Apart from the awful mounting and flippy-flappy cable,the polarity is wrong ,should be vertical.

Is that mounted on the pier of a wall?

ethernet

Zaphod wrote:

Anyone know what are these antennas are for? They seem to be dotted around the country with quite a few years. Are they the internet/phone service from Chorus?

Perhaps they're being used for a wifi connection between two buildings? Looks tiny.

zilog_jones

I've seen those "small MMDS" aerials being used for analogue Chorus MMDS - they may not be legit installs though...

lucernarian

Possibly an MMDS aerial for strong signal areas? And are they definetely only used for Chorus Analogue?

byte

Rippy wrote:

Anyway here's today's contribution. Apart from the awful mounting and flippy-flappy cable,the polarity is wrong ,should be vertical.

Tell me that satellite bracket isn't screwed to a chimney cap!:eek:

Rippy

byte wrote:

Tell me that satellite bracket isn't screwed to a chimney cap!:eek:

Sad but true,Byte. Another view of it below.
Antenna, from that location Collins Barracks is almost directly inline with Spur Hill. however there is no LOS to Spur Hill and brutal signal. (Low 40s db as against 60+ off of the Barracks - I know because I was installing on house next door and measured both.)

Anyway, sky brackets are the mount of choice for the cowboy-
here's todays contribution.
If he had put it in the attic it would have been better than pointing through two thick tiles. There is also a perfectly good unused lashing kit already on the chimney, I guess he didn't have a mast in the van.
I wonder what I will find tomorrow?

watty

The Chorus Wireless phone and Chorus wireless broadband were two different systems. They lost licence on phone due to lack of roll out. Possibly same issue on Powerbet Broadband. They had no equipemnt to install for Powernet for a long while.

The Phone system used a square face box similar to Digiweb metro, but larger.
Powernet used MMDS style antenna.

lucernarian

What sort of aerial installer wouldn't even have a 1 or 2 metre mast in the van?? That Mount Oval picture is gas, as stupid as a hirschmann aerial that points through the only tree in the garden of a house in Co. Cavan I saw yesterday.

Rippy

To_be_confirmed wrote:

What sort of aerial installer wouldn't even have a 1 or 2 metre mast in the van??

A Sky monkey?

5h4mr0(k

Photo here of one that was "self installed" last week....
http://inanerambings.blogspot.com/2007/07/dish-network.html

Ulsterman 1690

In fairness i think one has to draw a distinction between botchery committed by "professional" (sic) aerial riggers who are charging for their work and DIY temporary measures done by temporary/short term residents of rental properties

My first dish was a Lidl (80cm) dish mounted on an upside down clothes drier sitting in a bucket of cement which was perfectly adequete given that I was only going to be in the place six months

Sponge Bob

that self install is not on the house, its inside the front gate.

nor do I see a streel of cable anywhere

Zaphod

Zaphod wrote:

Anyone know what are these antennas are for? They seem to be dotted around the country with quite a few years. Are they the internet/phone service from Chorus?

Yep it's Chorus MMDS. Lots of them dotted around Listowel, Co. Kerry. Once asked an installer who was fitting one and he claims its for strong signal areas.

lucernarian

Rippy wrote:

A Sky monkey?

That's not an aerial installer. That's a sky installer. And the customer shouldn't have gone near a sky installer if that is the case.

watty

Karsini wrote:

Yep it's Chorus MMDS. Lots of them dotted around Listowel, Co. Kerry. Once asked an installer who was fitting one and he claims its for strong signal areas.

You can see the stalk is the same downconverter module as bolted in the new style Mesh dishes. The older dish had a pigtail down a hollow metal stalk and the downconvertor was a box behind the dish.

The older ones are liked by WiFi WAN fiends.

5h4mr0(k

watty wrote:

The older ones are liked by WiFi WAN fiends.

More info on that here