Satellite Dish in Attic?????

islanderre

Hello All,

I have my SAORVIEW aerial in the attic and get perfect reception to the TV below. Its a simple LIDL job thats also mains powered.

I seen in ALDI during the week the free to air Satellite dish and wonder if I could mount this inside the attic too??????
My Attic roof consists of breathable felt membrane and TEGRAL states...... their is no insulation between the sloped timbers.

As the saorview signal is clear and strong; would I be lucky enough to get the same from a satellite dish mounted in the attic too?????

Thanks,
Islanderre

Skull Murphy

Satellite broadcast frequencies won't penetrate roofing materials. Very strong signals might go through glass, but that's about it.

islanderre

Cheers for the reply Skull Murphy......

Guess its back to placing it on the gable wall sometime in the future.

zg3409

We normally don't recommend those lidl setups.

The dish itself is not that bad for the money, but the wall bracket is terrible.
Often the receivers do not do HD (they seem to lately) and they will not give a 7 day guide. For the cost there are usually better options online.

If you intend setting up the dish yourself beware that it is VERY VERY difficult to set up a dish for the first time. Ideally you would pre-program the receiver on a working dish to say Sky news and then bring the TV and receiver outside beside the dish and align very slowly. Those beeper satellite finders are not much use as they beep at any satellite and there are loads of them. They are only of use for peaking the signal once a signal is found.

islanderre

zg3409,
thanks for your comments and advise..... at this stage it will be 2014 before I make a move on the free to air or SKY box.
Cheers,
Islandere

Skull Murphy

The dish doesn't usually have to be high up like an aerial. The part of the sky where the relevant satellites can be found is around 20 degree elevation angle in Ireland. Extra height won't buy you any more signal & is only useful if the dish needs to "see" over an obstacle.

eh2010

What channels can you get on those lidl satellite dishes?

excollier

Depends which satellite you point it at and which receiver you use.

eh2010

The Lidl camping reciever im thinking of. The channels I have in mind are Irish and UK FTA channels where can I find a list of them?

Peter Rhea

You won't get any Irish channels with a Lidl receiver. (Unless you count UTV & BBC NI.)

zg3409

The camping receivers dish is not designed to be left outdoors. It may break in a storm.
It is also too small for reliable reception during heavy rain. For the money it is better to buy a half decent dish and a receiver. Even for camping, they are not much use. Possibly of some use on a caravan or mobile home, but it would need to be taken in during heavy winds. If you have never set up a dish before, best to use a professional. Those "satellite finders" are no use for finding satellites, only of use for peaking the dish once the right satellite is found.

fryup

so satellite in an attic is a no no ??

excollier

Most definitely a no no.

eirman

Explain this ... If I turn on my Nuvi SatNav in my attic office, it will detect and lock on to 7-9 satellites and give my position accurate to 7 meters.

It's a long attic with two velux skylights and a storage section with no skylight. I can walk up and down the length of the attic and I can track my position, and see my speed (1.2 kph)!

So how do GPS satellites differ from Broadcast satellites ?

snaps

If your velux window is south east facing, you may get some satellite signal. I once had a dish setup inside a window to get away with "No dish Allowed rule" It worked fine, until it rained, but that was a long time ago and the satellite signal being broadcast from Astra 2 is much stronger now

watty

Much lower frequency (1/10th) and very narrow band (less than 1/100th) in comparison so a small aerial works.

Also the Broadcast satellites are VERY much further away.

It depends what the roof is made of too. I suspect it frequently loses lock as the satellites pass by if you remain stationary far from the window.

If a roof / attic window was suitable glass without an energy saving coating and was facing the correct way and large enough an 80cm dish will work through it. But that is very unlikely.

Any of my satnav receivers (I have 3) need to be near a window and are only reliable on the windowsill.

So there is more difference between Satnav and Satellite TV than between CB Radio and DTT.

eirman

Thanks Watty

The roof is composed of stardard tiles, Damp-proofing, rafters, insulation and plasterboard. The two skylights are to the rear.

I can lock on to satellites to the front back and side of the house (360 degrees) when I'm well away from the skylights (8 mt).

I experimented a bit more ... no matter where I went in the house ... even the hot press ... I still had a lock on about 8 satellites. I left it for a minutes or so in situ a few times and it never lost it's lock. However the attic is the best ... it's almost the same as being out in the garden.

One of life's technical mysteries!! (or is it the weather)

NIMAN

Don't forget that the signal received at your dish is very weak, thats why it is shaped the way it is to focus the signal into the single point at your LNB.

Perhaps the signal from the satellite supplying GPS data is much stronger?

banie01

NIMAN wrote: »

Don't forget that the signal received at your dish is very weak, thats why it is shaped the way it is to focus the signal into the single point at your LNB.

Perhaps the signal from the satellite supplying GPS data is much stronger?

Its not just the actual strength of the GPS signal, although it is by its nature much stronger and transmitted from much lower distance.

A GPS unit is designed to receive multiple origin signals on a tiny aerial.
To work correctly it needs to receive a minimum of 3 widely seperated sats to generate a lock.
So GPS sats output a high power signal (carrying very little data basically a timestamp and satellite id versus the torrent of Data on any Sat TV transponder)at a lower frequency than Sat TV that allows greater signal penetration and better use of the signal in areas that don't have direct line of sight to multiple dishes and that doesn't require a directional antennae.
Satellite Comms on the other hand are(even in todays ''high-power'' world) are really a lower power highly directional transmissions that need a dish to gather and focus the transmission to allow reliable reception of the higher frequency and much higher bandwidth used for Sat TV.
Another side effect of the higher frequency and bandwidth is a much lower probability of the signal penetrating anything that isn't radio transparent(no chance really)

watty

eirman wrote: »

I experimented a bit more ... no matter where I went in the house ... even the hot press ... I still had a lock on about 8 satellites. I left it for a minutes or so in situ a few times and it never lost it's lock.

No foil on your plasterboard!

The bandwidth/power advantage due to closer satellites, MUCH narrower bandwidth and much lower frequency could be nearly 10,000,000 to 1 for GPS vs Satellite TV!

less than Half the altitude means x5 signal
1/10th frequency means x100 signal
data rate about 50 bps vs 80Mbps (27.5 M symbols per second), so about 1.5 Million times effective SNR for same transmit power!
But GPS is over 120 degrees beam compared to 20 degrees, so 1/36th signal for same power.

A GPS satellite could use 1/100th of TV Sat transmitter power but be effectively still be 100,000 times better signal than TV Satellite.
The more data you have the more power (signal) you need for same error rate or Signal to Noise.