DIY satellite installation - quick questions

Kashkai

Right, I've ordered the dish, quad lnb, cable, satellite finder, receiver etc from Satellite.ie and hope to receive it tomorrow. Now I'm fairly competent at DIY and I'm pretty sure that I can get this set up correctly. However I've a couple of quick questions for anyone out there who has managed to set up their own dish successfully:

1. Last weekend, I picked up a short length of satellite cable and 2 f plugs in B & Q to have a dry run at connecting the plugs to the cable. Although I managed to fit them to the cable fairly quickly, when preparing the cable to fit the f-plugs, no matter how careful I was in cutting through the outer plastic coating, I invariably cut through some of the copper sheathing underneath. Now will this cause problems or is losing a few of these copper wires no big deal. As far as I can see, they are superfluous when the f plug goes on as they are pulled back from the inner copper wire.

2. I'm still dithering over where to place the dish. I have 2 options, i.e. either gable wall of my house. The easy option is the south facing gable wall which will entail short cable runs of 10 metres approx. Trouble is there are some trees here and even though I can trim them down, will remaining branches blowing in the wind interrupt the satellite signal or will the 80cm dish I've ordered make up for a few small wispy branches blowing up and down in front of the dish. I've seen other houses where the dish appears to be blocked by some obstruction like another house, trees etc.

The other option is the far end of the house where the dish would have a clearer view of the sky but that entails cable runs of 50 metres or so to where I plan to set up a HD box so that would be 2 cable runs of 50 metres if I go for a PVR eventually and another 2 runs of 50 metres for the other 2 tvs in the house.

If there are any other potential pitfalls, then I'd appreciate the advice as hopefully I'll be setting this up tomorrow.

syboit

Cutting some of those copper sheating wires will make no difference, just make sure when you put on the f-connector that copped is paired back enough so it doesnt make contact with the main center wire.

Have a look here, http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/fconn.htm

As for runs of cable, I've read a few different places saying 70m is a maximum run, I've a fairly long run myself around 30m's and no probs.

Also, remember the line of site is at a angle coming from the satellite in space so that angle might be enough to come in over the trees.

Im in the same situation as the OP.


The rear of my house faces diagnoly towards Astra, there is a large tree at the end of my and my neighbors house (semi-detached).


What angle does the astra sat come down at, im trying to figure out if it would 'Clear' the branches.

I have also seen sat dishes which seem to be right behind a wall or other object.

Martin_F

I think the elevation is about 22 degrees for Dublin. This site calculates for multiple sats/locations.

http://www.hansa-electronic.com/satcalceng.asp

Your dish won't point at 22 - but I think that is your line of sight required - 22 is about 1/4 up from horizontal to vertical.

Bogger77

Martin_F wrote: »

I think the elevation is about 22 degrees for Dublin. This site calculates for multiple sats/locations.

http://www.hansa-electronic.com/satcalceng.asp

Your dish won't point at 22 - but I think that is your line of sight required - 22 is about 1/4 up from horizontal to vertical.

Gorb track, available from http://members.chello.nl/~berry.walda/GorbTrack_EN.htm has a function to allo wto easily calculate clearances etc, for various sats.

Kashkai

One more question and theres probably an easy answer but............

I've to drill through walls to get the cable into the house. Now after I drill through the outside 4 inch block, the 2 inch cavity, the 2 inch insulation and finally the inner 4 inch block, how do I get a cable thats probably going to be twisting in a circular fashion (after being on a roll of cable for however long!) through the above in a straight line without it twisting up into the inner cavity and missing the inner holes?

I'm thinking I use an old wire coat hanger and make a hook out of the inner copper wire of the satellite cable, attach them, and pull it through or else use string. However, if theres and easy way, please let me know as I see this as being the hard part of running the cable.

Thanks

syboit

Prosperous Dave wrote: »

One more question and theres probably an easy answer but............

I've to drill through walls to get the cable into the house. Now after I drill through the outside 4 inch block, the 2 inch cavity, the 2 inch insulation and finally the inner 4 inch block, how do I get a cable thats probably going to be twisting in a circular fashion (after being on a roll of cable for however long!) through the above in a straight line without it twisting up into the inner cavity and missing the inner holes?

I'm thinking I use an old wire coat hanger and make a hook out of the inner copper wire of the satellite cable, attach them, and pull it through or else use string. However, if theres and easy way, please let me know as I see this as being the hard part of running the cable.

Thanks

This will be the easiest part of the overall job, you'd be surprised how rigid the cable can be, but I suppose a tie it onto a coat-hanger and you can't go wrong :-)

CHW

One of the options on www.dishpointer.com is to "show obstacle", which will give the distance from and min height of an obstacle from wherever you plan to site your dish. You also have to factor in the height of your dish from ground level, so if it's 3 meters up your wall, add 3 meters to the "h" value that dishpointer feeds you.

It's not deadly accurate, but probably better than getting out a protractor and trying to measure out 22 degrees. Plus it might help in determining where is the best place to site the dish.

Tony

Try "threading" the cable on its own first, if that fails strip back the cable to the centre conductor and warp this along a length of coathanger and wrap tightly with insulating tape.

Prosperous Dave wrote: »

One more question and theres probably an easy answer but............

I've to drill through walls to get the cable into the house. Now after I drill through the outside 4 inch block, the 2 inch cavity, the 2 inch insulation and finally the inner 4 inch block, how do I get a cable thats probably going to be twisting in a circular fashion (after being on a roll of cable for however long!) through the above in a straight line without it twisting up into the inner cavity and missing the inner holes?

I'm thinking I use an old wire coat hanger and make a hook out of the inner copper wire of the satellite cable, attach them, and pull it through or else use string. However, if theres and easy way, please let me know as I see this as being the hard part of running the cable.

Thanks

Kashkai

Tony wrote: »

Try "threading" the cable on its own first, if that fails strip back the cable to the centre conductor and warp this along a length of coathanger and wrap tightly with insulating tape.

Cheers Tony and thanks for the rapid dispatch of my order.

I'm looking forward to getting my Freesat up and running and escaping from my lousy indoor ariel recption and its diet of RTE "entertainment".

David