Questions on getting a dish + aerial installed

Alun

I'm considering ditching UPC and going for a combined FTA + Saorview combination using a homemade HTPC setup. I can get the HTPC side of things sorted fairly easily, but I'm wondering about finer points of the dish + aerial installation side of things.

I live in a bungalow and have seen a few Sky installs around my estate, and mostly what I see is the cable draped over the roof, down the wall and a rather crude looking hole drilled in the wall. Now, I don't want holes in my wall if possible, but in addition to that the TV is not on that outside wall, so that's not an option. Would it be possible to let the cables enter the attic space under the eaves and through the attic to then drop down to where the TV is?

Aerial wise, I'm only about 10km from 3 Rock and can see the transmitter, so I think an attic aerial would be OK.

So that makes 3 cables (2 for satellite for PVR functionality + 1 aerial) having to drop down from the attic to the TV, and I'm wondering how to achieve that as tidily as possible. There's a UPC point just behind the TV, and I'm wondering whether whatever route these normally take can be reused for this? Is there usually a conduit or something like that behind the plasterboard? All the electrical plus phone and alarm wiring runs through the attic space so I assume the UPC does too. Otherwise I could run the cables in surface ducting in the corner at a pinch.

I'd hope that installers usually call round to survey the place first and agree on routing of cabling etc. beforehand, or am I being too optimistic here?

Sorry for the rather disjointed questions but if I do this I want to do it right.

Charlie-Bravo

Hi Alun, how handy are you? If you are in a bungalow you should be good to do the job yourself.

It should be ok to run the cables through the attic - my brother is in Shankill and got one of the small Aldi aerials a couple of weeks ago and put it in the attic - the signal is very good so a standard 52 element aerial from Homebase (or other hardware store) should work no problem - the reason why I said Homebase is because they were selling them at half price in Nutgrove last week for just over 30euro.

As for the satellite option - run four cables into the attic - you never know when you'll want to drop a coax for a second telly in another room.

With regards the conduits in walls, if you can get into your attic and see if the conduit and cable is visible - might be tricky trying to get in at the eaves - you'll have to do this anyway when running cables.

For the dish you definitely need to fix a bracket with 4 coach screws into a wall. The other option with screws is to wrap the fixing on a chimney (how well sited is the chimney?).

Alun

While I'd be willing to have a go at routing the cabling through the house and installing the aerial, there's no way I'm going onto the roof to install a dish .. I'll let someone with the relevant insurance do that I don't think there'll be a problem with bringing the cable in underneath the eaves into the attic to be honest.

I'll have a root around in the attic tomorrow and see if I can discover where the existing cable goes and if there's any kind of conduit in the wall leading down to the current UPC wallplate.

Martin_F

Dishes don't need to be up on the roof - a side wall of the house is fine as long as it has a clear line to the sat. If you have a suitable place a step ladder is enough. As long as the dish base / arm is above head height (7ft ish) or can't be walked into. You can even mount at ground level. Have a look around for a suitable place. You could run a cable in to the attic from the underside of the fascia board.

lucernarian

Martin_F wrote: »

Dishes don't need to be up on the roof - a side wall of the house is fine as long as it has a clear line to the sat. If you have a suitable place a step ladder is enough. As long as the dish base / arm is above head height (7ft ish) or can't be walked into. You can even mount at ground level. Have a look around for a suitable place. You could run a cable in to the attic from the underside of the fascia board.

+1 to all of that.

Alun

Martin_F wrote: »

Dishes don't need to be up on the roof - a side wall of the house is fine as long as it has a clear line to the sat. If you have a suitable place a step ladder is enough. As long as the dish base / arm is above head height (7ft ish) or can't be walked into. You can even mount at ground level. Have a look around for a suitable place. You could run a cable in to the attic from the underside of the fascia board.

That's a possibility, but I'm not sure, given that we're in a bungalow in a fairly crowded estate, that we'd be able to get a clear view. Worth looking into though.

EDIT: looks like I've found a suitable spot at the back of the house if my research is correct ... 28 deg E of South, and 24 deg elevation, is that right? Now, what dish (solid, mesh?) and where do I get it?