Line of sight

bricktopper

Hi

Building a new house in Meath. The location of the sat dish on the side of the house is about 15m from very tall trees (in the direction of where the dish needs to point). Is there a piece of equipment I can get that will allow me to test the signal at roughly the point where the dish will go? (House is only at foundation level).

Thanks

Ronnie Raygun

You might get a couple of ideas from this thread, something as high tech as a folded piece of paper could do the job.

If the trees really are "very tall", you'll need to be further back than 15 metres or else place the dish pretty high up. If you want to test the signal, you'll need a dish & either a meter or receiver that can confirm you're aligned on the right satellite position.

Gerry Wicklow

Use this site with your Google co-ordinates. It has a feature which will allow you calculate the maximum height of nearby obstructions.
http://www.dishpointer.com/

Puggy

If you know the height of your dish (5m), the distance to the trees (15m), the beam elevation (21.4deg) and one other angle, assuming the trees are growing vertical (90deg), then the trees must not be more than 5.88m higher than the dish. Or in this case 10.88m high, assuming the land is level and the dish is 5m high.

http://www.cleavebooks.co.uk/scol/calrtri.htm


Dont forget that the trees may continue to grow!

SalteeDog

Since you are in the early stages of the build you should think about other options if the trees are an obstruction. One option may be to install the dish on a pole (or on a wall) in the back garden at a point where it has a clear view of the sky. To that end you could bury some conduit running from the house to the suitable point. The conduit should carry at least four satellite coax cables and ideally should run into the house and be routed to the loft or to a place where you can connect the cables to a distribution unit or to the the individual cables running to the various rooms. Running cables is usually more awkward after the house is built.

zg3409

I have seen dishes mounted on poles at the very front of houses, point back as a very close mountain blocked the signal in the back garden.

As others have said, measure the height of the trees, the distance from the house etc.