Advice required: Self-install DIY of satellite dish

Charlie-Bravo

Ok, I have a nice HDTV with FreeSat HD built in. I am acquiring an old Sky dish from a friend and want to connect the two togther. I will need to do the whole installation myself so here's my questions:

1. What's the best way to deterimine the direction of the Satellite dish on the house. I have neighbours beside me with dishes so I could probably just measure their dish as it sits against the wall to ascertain the correct angle. What would I have to look out for when completing this?

2. I will need to do some cabling from the dish to the TV. If I were to evetually get a "Plus Box" of some sort, should I be installing two cables for the Plus service? Or can one cable be used for tyhe likes of sky plus?

3. What grade cabling should I use (type and grade)? Also where would I go for this. I am open to getting things like this from providers like say Maplin. If there is somewhere else handier let me know.

Thanks all in advance, Astro.

Tony

Take a look at this video, it may be of some help

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXKo0ienGgg

Kashkai

astrofluff wrote: »

Ok, I have a nice HDTV with FreeSat HD built in. I am acquiring an old Sky dish from a friend and want to connect the two togther. I will need to do the whole installation myself so here's my questions:

1. What's the best way to deterimine the direction of the Satellite dish on the house. I have neighbours beside me with dishes so I could probably just measure their dish as it sits against the wall to ascertain the correct angle. What would I have to look out for when completing this?

2. I will need to do some cabling from the dish to the TV. If I were to evetually get a "Plus Box" of some sort, should I be installing two cables for the Plus service? Or can one cable be used for tyhe likes of sky plus?

3. What grade cabling should I use (type and grade)? Also where would I go for this. I am open to getting things like this from providers like say Maplin. If there is somewhere else handier let me know.

Thanks all in advance, Astro.

See Tony's video above - its a great start in setting up your own dish.

I recently installed my own Freesat set up and this is how I did it:

1. Find out where the sun shines on your house between 10 - 11am as this is the portion of the sky that the Astra 2 satellite is in. Now you know where you need to fix your dish to the house. Buy a bracket and coach screws to fix to the house and attach the dish to the bracket (btw dishes aren't that expensive and you can pick up a new 80cm dish from €55 - from experience, SKY dishes are cheap sh1te that rust/break)

2. Decide how many tv points you want connected to the dish and this will dictate what lnb you'll need, i.e. single, twin, quad etc. If you have only one tv point, then a single lnb is required. However, if you plan on getting SKY+/SKY HD/Freesat PVR, then a twin lnb will be necessary. I ran 2 cables to where I'll be (eventually) installing a Freesat pvr but you can use wf65 "shotgun" cable that is a twin cable used by SKY installers. I thought that the 2 separate cables would give me a better signal so I went with that.

3. You can get a satellite finder meter and a compass to help you to get a more accurate fix on the satellite than guessing the alignment from your neighbour's dish. There are a lot of satellites up there only a few degrees off Astra 2. Connect the sat finder to the lnb and to a cable that you can run to an old SKY box to help you to lock onto Astra and to help you with the fine tuning of the dish to get the maximum signal strength and quality. It would be a good idea to either be able to see the tv to guage the signal strength/quality or else to have someone call out the readings to you.

4. I bought Triax tx100 cable as it is a good quality cable according to the CAI in their benchmark tests. Its cheaper to buy it by the roll than by the metre. Don't underestimate how much you'll need. I got through a 100m roll when running cable from the dish to 4 tv points.

Finally there are several suppliers that you could go to but I bought my dish, lnb, cable, f plugs and satellite finder from Satellite.ie. Good service from Tony and the order was delivered promptly at a good price.

cnocbui

A Sat Finder - aka signal strength meter - is a must IMO. Lidl sell them regularly for about €9 when they are selling sat gear. Maplins have some for a bit more.

I live in a very windy are and have to realign my dish every year or so. Having a sat finder makes it a breeze.

I had no sat experience whatsoever.

But a few weeks back i picked up a 60CM sky dish of some lad on adverts for a few quid.

Had to get the Bracket of a nice chap in Fairview, Freesat.ie.

Had a look at my neighbors Dishes to Find the general Direction to Astra, which is Diagonally from the rear of my house.


Got up my ladder, Half way up the rear of my house, Drilled the4 holes, put up the wall bracket then pole, with the U-bolts, Then the dish, tightened it enough that it would hold the Dish but i could still move it left and right and up and Down.


Got a small Sat Finder Bleeper from maplins, Connected up the RG6 to the Sky box i got free, then moved the dish as i had the earpiece in my ear, and moved it untill i got the highest frequency, small Tweaking and in no time i had a very high signal.

Checked the signal on the sly box, was around 90% Sig 80% Quality.

Tightened up all the bolts Ect.

Then got a Humax HD Freesat box, Hooked it up scanned, got all channels. all the main Channels such as BBC HD show 100% sig and 100% Quality.


Now i have a Freesat setup and as i said before this had no experience whatsoever with Sat.
4 Weeks later the dish hasnt Budged and all is working perfectly.

Happy days :P

astrofluff

astrofluff wrote: »

Ok, I have a nice HDTV with FreeSat HD built in. I am acquiring an old Sky dish from a friend and want to connect the two togther. I will need to do the whole installation myself so here's my questions:

1. What's the best way to deterimine the direction of the Satellite dish on the house. I have neighbours beside me with dishes so I could probably just measure their dish as it sits against the wall to ascertain the correct angle. What would I have to look out for when completing this?

2. I will need to do some cabling from the dish to the TV. If I were to evetually get a "Plus Box" of some sort, should I be installing two cables for the Plus service? Or can one cable be used for tyhe likes of sky plus?

3. What grade cabling should I use (type and grade)? Also where would I go for this. I am open to getting things like this from providers like say Maplin. If there is somewhere else handier let me know.

Thanks all in advance, Astro.

The way I did it was to look at neighbours dishes and move it until I thought it was right.

You will however need to have a tv and freesat box outside with you to check signal levels,also there are a number of other sats you could pick up.Its trial and error and could take a good while but its easily do-able.

And alternative would be to get a sat meter off ebay and use that,you can buy them cheap enough.

regarding the cable just ask for satelite coax in an electrical store or maplins and thats it.

watty

About twenty-two other satellites!

Tony

Not if you want good quality cable you dont. Look for WF100,TX100 or any cable mentioned on the CAI list as Dave alluded to.

Alaia Damaged Sink wrote: »

regarding the cable just ask for satelite coax in an electrical store

Charlie-Bravo

Thanks for all of that guys. It is very interesting how these things can be hit and miss especially if there over 20 sateillites up there. I saw the video and straight away thought to myself, definitely need a sat finder or else I'll always be questioning if it is ever in an accurate position!

On a side note, I looked around googling for info on this subject and it wasn't that helpful as some of my questions were quite specific so I'm glad this resource is here with plenty of advice from people who give their time to help. Therefore, much appreciated gents.

mike65

Just a word about drilling holes, its the part people tend to not talk about, if you are putting the cable through an exterior wall you'll need a 10mm wide concrete/masonary bit. If you are in a modern home then the wall will be two cavity blocks deep + the insulation gap between them. So you'll need a drill bit about 40-45 cm long and thats best hired.

Sam Radford

This is worth a read: http://www.The-Cool-Book-shop.co.uk/installing_sky.htm
Lots of useful tips.

Kashkai

mike65 wrote: »

Just a word about drilling holes, its the part people tend to not talk about, if you are putting the cable through an exterior wall you'll need a 10mm wide concrete/masonary bit. If you are in a modern home then the wall will be two cavity blocks deep + the insulation gap between them. So you'll need a drill bit about 40-45 cm long and thats best hired.

No need to hire a special drill or drill bit for drilling through the walls. I bought a 10mm diametre/400mm long bit in my local DIY store for €7.50 and then used my trusty bosch hammer action drill to make the hole. The only thing to watch is that as the drill bit is long, there may be a danger of it breaking under the torque strain so wear protective goggles and keep an eye that it is going in straight and not starting to bend. In my case I drilled from the inside out as I wanted the cables to come into the house beside the existing sockets/tv points. I also bought blanking plates and made 12mm holes in them and passed the cables through them and then affixed the blanking plates to the wall. This now makes a pretty neat and tidy finish so when you look at the wall you see a "socket" with the sat cables protruding it instead of 2 cables coming out of a hole drilled in the wall. Suppose I was being a bit anal but imo it made for a much neater finish and less grumbling from the wife!!

mike65

I have had no luck locally finding a 10mm shaft drill suitable for masonary (they are much quicker than a typical steel tipped bit and are designed to evacuate the debris) more than 210mm long.

Fidelis

With regards to drilling a hole in the exterior wall, would you use some kind of filler where the cable enters and exits? Or does the 10mm drillbit leave a snug fit for the satellite cable?

polyfusion

If you don't want to drill a hole in your wall, there are cables available that will pass between the gap between a window (or some doors) and it's frame. Like this: http://www.sadoun.com/Sat/Installation/Flat-cable.jpg

mike65

I did find a 400 mm drill for 5 euro

Fidelis, its a pretty snug fit. What you can do is apply some polyfilla to the external hole if required.

Kashkai

Fidelis wrote: »

With regards to drilling a hole in the exterior wall, would you use some kind of filler where the cable enters and exits? Or does the 10mm drillbit leave a snug fit for the satellite cable?

Its a snug enough fit but there is a small enough gap that water/creepy crawlies might use to enter. To get around this you could either:

1. Use "Painters Mate" which is a type of sealant that you can fill in around your cable where it enters the wall and its paintable after an hour, or

2. Buy one of the following -
http://www.satcure.co.uk/accs/page8.htm#tidy

I used them on the outside walls and they gave a very neat finish and also serve to keep the rain from trickling onto the cable and making its way into your house by capilliary action.

One final point and its this -

When setting up your cable run, remember that water doesn't flow uphill so run the cable up to where it will enter the wall to avoid a situation where the cable is set up to fall down vertically to the entry point where it goes into the exterior wall which will run the risk of water running down the cable and following the cable into the house, where over time, it may lead to electrical problems if the water can make its way along the cable to your satellite receiver.

Fidelis

Thanks for the replies. Much appreciated!