Satellite install - DIY or Pro?

kkelly77

I'm currently researching getting a FTA system for the house. Previous provider for the last owner was cable. I have TV points in the sitting room, kitchen and 3 bedrooms, all fed from a splitter in the attic.

I am considering sourcing the necessary kit myself (dish, LNB, cable, receivers). Would an installer be willing to fit the gear for me? Not sure if I'd be comfortable scaling the house to put the dish on the roof and I don't own the required 3 section or roof ladders anyway.

Also, would the current coax in place be suitable for connection to the LNB or does it need to be replaced for RG6?

Thanks for the advice.

Cesium Clock

by roof do you mean chimney?

a dish should only be installed to a chimney as a last resort, line of sight issues etc,

kkelly77

Cesium Clock wrote: »

by roof do you mean chimney?

a dish should only be installed to a chimney as a last resort, line of sight issues etc,

Sorry, yes I mean chimney. I'm only assuming the dish needs to be installed in that location as the majority of houses around me have done so.

Is there a way of confirming if the dish actually needs to be fixed to the chimney?

C3P0

www.dishpointer.com

Find your house, select 28.2E from the list, and it will show you the direction the dish needs to point, and the height an obstacle on the line of sight can be before it will affect the signal.

A dish could be mounted at ground-level; as long as it has line of sight, that's all that matters (excepting interference from animals, kids or footballs).

Liameter

kkelly77 wrote: »

Would an installer be willing to fit the gear for me?

Few would be comfortable doing that. Most like to supply equipment with which they are familiar.

Cesium Clock

Liameter wrote: »

Few would be comfortable doing that. Most like to supply equipment with which they are familiar.

Real installers can work with any product,

Liameter

Cesium Clock wrote: »

Real installers can work with any product,

Of course they can. But few would be comfortable doing that. Most like to supply equipment with which they are familiar.

A "real" installer has probably never handled a cheap dish from the likes of Lidl so, dependent on what you buy, he may well be unfamiliar with it. The job could take longer and cost more.

If a part is missing from the dish kit, he won't have a spare. You'll pay the full call-out charge, plus time, and get nothing for it.

Then there's the question of warranty. If, for example, the LNB fails and he didn't supply it, he won't cover it under warranty. You'll pay the full call-out charge plus labour plus the cost of a new LNB.

By all means consider it but be aware of the pitfalls.

swoofer

a good fta is freesat, buy box from humax, then ring installer for quote and say can you supply other bits as well, nothing to lose,

samuelj

you will more than likely need an installer as aligning satellite dishes is very difficult without the proper equipment. you need to be millimetre perfect to get the full signal.

I have put up about seven dishes for family/friends, you would have the dish up in about ten minutes but unless you have the satellite finder youll be up there for hours moving the dish fractionally to get the signal right

Moses G. Washington

Duh ... did you learn anything after your 7 dishes ...

samuelj

Moses G. Washington wrote: »

Duh ... did you learn anything after your 7 dishes ...

very sad

Auvers

samuelj wrote: »

unless you have the satellite finder youll be up there for hours moving the dish fractionally to get the signal right

dropped my satfinder off my roof last weekend and smashed to bits, but already had the dish down and was fixing the LNBs for 19\28\13 last week

so I had a brainwave, using a laptop pointed at the TV with the receiver on the best transpoder I dialed my smartphone with skype video and it worked a treat, took me 5-6 mins to get all the LNBs setup

SalteeDog

Great idea.

Cesium Clock

SalteeDog wrote: »

Great idea.

until the smartphone is dropped

kkelly77

I'm after picking up a free Sky + box and have an octo LNB, dish and cable on the way.

I've decided to install myself and I don't think I will need to install the dish on the chimney. Found a different installation location that should do.

As I have existing coax in the house, should I replace the coax connectors on the cable in the attic with F connectors? As well as replacing the coax connector plates in each of the rooms with F connector plates? I believe connecting an F connector to a coax via an adapter can lead to poor performance in the signal . Is this true?

Liameter

By "a coax" do you mean "a TV plug". If yes then the answer is that a TV plug was originally designed for Medium wave radio and is barely usable for UHF TV. It's certainly not suitable for LNB signals, which can exceed 2 GHz.

See http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/fconn.htm for instructions.

kkelly77

Coax connector

Ronnie Raygun

Your existing cable mightn't be up to the job of carrying satellite IF either.

It should at the least have some kind of foil shielding between the outer braid & the dielectric (plastic or foam part around the inner conductor).

The type with (usually skimpy) braid only is no good.

See this article.

kkelly77

Ronnie Raygun wrote: »

Your existing cable mightn't be up to the job of carrying satellite IF either.

It should at the least have some kind of foil shielding between the outer braid & the dielectric (plastic or foam part around the inner conductor).

The type with (usually skimpy) braid only is no good.

See this article.

Thanks for the link.

I'm not 100% sure if the coax has the foil shielding or not. I'll be getting 250m of cable so I should have plenty if I need to swap out the existing cable.