Has anyone installed their own dish?

[JamesOK]

Well I am really tempted buy Freesat but dont currently have a satellite dish on my house. I believe installation of the dish is £80. But on ebay you can get a dish for about £20 with all the stuff you need.

So my question is, has anyone ever installed their own dish? I have a guy in work with me whos done it and said it wasnt too much trouble (hes also offered me a signal meter to assist in positioning). Anyone have any comments as to experiences in this area. Good or bad, all welcome!

 

[John Duncan]

I'm saying nothing that might involve anybody getting up a ladder..........

 

[JamesOK]

[quote user="JohnDuncan"]I'm saying nothing that might involve anybody getting up a ladder..........[/quote]

Haha, I should note that I will not hold anyone responsible if I fall of a ladder.

 

[survivor]

No experience with this I`m afraid James. Just popped in to say that my missus is going to go mad when we eventually do have one installed! If Freesat takes off in the way I`m imagining it will then I think we`re going to see streets with dishes on practically every house.

 

[JamesOK]

[quote user="survivor"]
No experience with this I`m afraid James. Just popped in to say that my missus is going to go mad when we eventually do have one installed! If Freesat takes off in the way I`m imagining it will then I think we`re going to see streets with dishes on practically every house.

[/quote]

Yep survivor I agree. For people like me who dont watch a lot of TV, Sky is too much. I dont want hundreds of channels of stuff which you have to pay for. I have freeview at the moment, which is fine for me, but I love the fact we are going to get free HD channels through Freesat.

A friend has just moved into a house where a satellite dish was already installed by the previous owner, so he bought the Foxsat box and spent about 20 mins on the phone to me last night telling me how good it was!

 

[Anonymous]

HUMAX FOXSAT HD
SINGLE LNB SYSTEM

HD Receiver + High Gain Dish + LNB + Wall Mount + Remote Control + HDMI Lead

PRICE £189.99
Unlike with comet. currys and argos' standard related installations which I have a feeling will provide you a very basic minidish ( ask them if you will get a 60cm Dish ) it's important to get at least a 60cm Dish for better reception and a good quality Low Noise LNB :https://www.satalogue.com/section3/page2.htm

FREESAT INSTALLATION

Complete Standard Installation Of Dish and Freesat Receiver

PRICE £80.00

(Approved CAI Installer)

https://www.satalogue.com/section3/install.htm

Forget wonderful ebay....get it done properly...

 

[Anonymous]

OK, I've installed my own dish. I purchased a dish, cable and Fortec Passion
HD receiver (not Freesat, but picks up all Freesat channels) for £159 and I
didn't want the extra expense of having it installed. Having said that, I did
need a satellite finder kit for £19.99., so I've only saved £60.

I have a flat roof with easy access, so getting the dish up was easy enough.
The house is North facing, so again positioning it was easy. It was certainly
more difficult to get the right angle/elevation/LNB angle. That took quite some
time: After I'd found the Astra2, I wired it all up and phoned the Mrs
indoors to tell me what the signal strength was @ the receiver. To get the best
reception; 66% strength 100% quality, I was up on the roof long enough to get
sunburn

I am quite pleased I put it up myself. Because of my flat-roofed house it was
easy. It would be a little more difficult to do on a ladder, especially
spending so long tuning it to get the best signal strength. Now I know what I'm
doing, I could do it a lot quicker.

My Passion HD receiver is bugging me (various issues, including no picture,
only sound for ITV HD) so I'm just waiting to pick up a Panasonic PZ81 to
pick up and view Freesat.

BTW, I live in central London,
well N8. I have no Freeview reception and there is no cable on my road. So this
is the only way to get telly after 2012 without hooking up with the Sky.

 

[Anonymous]

The self-install option is easier than you think. I 'have a friend who' put up a dish for a certain TV provider in a country that they may not strictly provide coverage for. He had a bit of trouble to start with (from being to delicate actually), but once the signal was obtained...voil….

I would recommend the purchase of a compass to get the right alignment (if there are no other sats nearby to give you a guide) and a signal strength meter.

hth

 

[JamesOK]

Gary Mardell:The self-install option is easier than you think. I 'have a friend who' put up a dish for a certain TV provider in a country that they may not strictly provide coverage for. He had a bit of trouble to start with (from being to delicate actually), but once the signal was obtained...voil….

I would recommend the purchase of a compass to get the right alignment (if there are no other sats nearby to give you a guide) and a signal strength meter.

hth

Seems like youre friend didnt have too much trouble then. I have the luxury of next doors dish being right next to where I will put one, so can get a good idea of where to point it!

 

[roger06]

Interesting. We're having our house rewired and the sparky has already run coax from roof to floor for TV, FM and Satellite. I'd assumed that regardless of this I'd still have to pay full whack to get the FreeSat dish installed but after reading this I'll take a look on eBay and do it myself...

How easy is it to find the satallite and can the finders be rented? (or can I see the satallite with a good pair of bins?...

)

 

[JamesOK]

Just stick "satellite dish kit" into ebay, theres loads on there.

 

[Anonymous]

Mine was about £25 new.

Even if Sky are charging £100, how much does it really cost them?

£100 les VAT = £85.10. Even if that's split 50:50 how long would it take you to do it if you were getting £42.55 gross? 40 mins tops?*

* kickbacks, commission and other installer incentives excepted

 

[Andrew Everard]

I still want to know why you have a picture of the young Suggs as your avatar...

 

[Anonymous]

Andrew Everard:
I still want to know why you have a picture of the young Suggs as your avatar...

Buster he sold the heat, with a rocksteady beat..

And I'm seriously happy that a 2006 Gary compares with a youngs Suggs as he's fours years older!

 

[Anonymous]

Me!

But mine's on motor on a scaffold pole in the back garden rather than on the side of the house...if that makes a difference.

Installing a fixed dish really isn't difficult, more tricky if you're also installing a motor (say, you want to look at more than Astra2). A compass will get you started in roughly the right direction (south and a tinsy bit east), though there are now so many satellite dishes up that a general shuftie will give you a pretty accurate direction and will also give some indication of the angle of declination you need - though Astra2 is pretty vertical. So put your dish up facing roughly the right place in the sky, but keep your bolts looseish. Then fine tune the direction with a satellite finder - a little cigarette pack sized box which is connected inline and wails loudly when your dish is pointing directly at a satellite. Waggle your dish around a bit altering both the vertical and horizontal axis slightly. When the finder wails out loud, tighten up the bolts - making sure you don't move the dish in the process. Keep the finder inline until the dish is fixed to make sure of this. Note: the satellite finder doesn't tell you *which* satellite you're pointing at, just that you're locked onto one of 'em, so get your basic direction right first and don't waggle too much left and right! Once the dish is fixed, remove the finder and tape up your connections with the waterproof tape. Switch off the receiver before you make/break connections as there is small but significant (to your receiver) power going along the satellite cable.

It can also help if there's someone indoors with a loud voice who can keep an eye on any signal quality bars if you're having trouble with the finder. For some reason the finder worked a treat when I was setting up a fixed dish, but when I tried to setup the dish on the motor it wouldn't wail much, even though the signal quality on the satellite receiver said there was signal.

If you're going to use a motor, first make sure that your pole is 100% vertical. This is vital. Then attach your motor, again using the compass to detect south. Then attach the dish to the motor. Then fine tune (ie. waggle) though this time you have two things to contend with waggling, the motor and the dish. Waggling may not be technical, but it works assuming you've got the basic direction right.

One more thing, the metal used for most cheapish motors and dishes is not the greatest. Stripping your bolts is highly likely. Take care how much effort you use!

Mine's been up over a year and doesn't seem to have budged - it still tracks the satellites ok. Motorised dishes are fun! Hope that helps.

Alcina

 

[JamesOK]

Well I finally got round to installing my dish. Bought one for 25 quid from ebay with a quad LNB. It was suprisingly easy to set up, i connected it up to the Humax box I bought and basically had my girlfriend looking at the signal meter as I moved the dish to the best location.

Saved myself 80 quid installation fee and probably did a better job too. Result.