Direction for a second Dish

beer enigma

Morning all, just looking for a bit of advice/suggestions.

I'm based in Cork & have a standard Sky+ setup with the dish mounted on the side wall of the house - unfortunately, the house faces south east, so there is no way of pointing the dish west unless I attach it to the front of the house (or chimney). Neither option is possible as it goes against planning rules.

I'd like to get a second dish, primarily for Portuguese TV (Hispasat ?), but understand that I need to point west for this.

To make matters worse, although I have a very long garden, it slopes down, so even if I mount the dish on the shed (30 metres approx from the receiver) behind the house, I dont know that I'd get line of sight because of the house potentially being in the way.

My questions are

a) If I get up onto the shed, is it possible to check the elevation required to see if I have line of sight & if so what is the angle of elevation.

b) if I can get line of sight, doe sthis mean I could get a motorised solution to track other satellites (something to do with the Clarke belt ?)

c) Is 30 metres feasable to still get a signal & if motorised activate the Diseq

d) Will a basic 80cm Maplins dish do this

and finally e) - Someone gave me 50metres of 75ohm black cable, the label says SATB 75ohm Satellite/TV Coax.....is this useable ?


Sorry for the questions, but any help appreciated.

Cheers

Andi

Pal

In answer to part of your question, you are correct, Portugese TV is on 30 West.

The popular package is called TV Cabo.

Paul007

Andip wrote:

Morning all, just looking for a bit of advice/suggestions.

I'm based in Cork & have a standard Sky+ setup with the dish mounted on the side wall of the house - unfortunately, the house faces south east, so there is no way of pointing the dish west unless I attach it to the front of the house (or chimney). Neither option is possible as it goes against planning rules.

I'd like to get a second dish, primarily for Portuguese TV (Hispasat ?), but understand that I need to point west for this.

To make matters worse, although I have a very long garden, it slopes down, so even if I mount the dish on the shed (30 metres approx from the receiver) behind the house, I dont know that I'd get line of sight because of the house potentially being in the way.

My questions are

a) If I get up onto the shed, is it possible to check the elevation required to see if I have line of sight & if so what is the angle of elevation.


b) if I can get line of sight, doe sthis mean I could get a motorised solution to track other satellites (something to do with the Clarke belt ?)

c) Is 30 metres feasable to still get a signal & if motorised activate the Diseq

d) Will a basic 80cm Maplins dish do this

and finally e) - Someone gave me 50metres of 75ohm black cable, the label says SATB 75ohm Satellite/TV Coax.....is this useable ?


Sorry for the questions, but any help appreciated.

Cheers

Andi

A
Checkout this site for guide on line of sight and elevation
http://www.ses-astra.com/consumer/azimuth/index.php?locale=en_GB

B
Yes

C
I'd imagine, use good quality cable - CT100

D
Yep

E
The cable is RG6, it's usuable but it would be best to use CT100 or equivalent.

Butterbox

Hispasat is 30 degrees west of south. If your house is facing south-east and your shed is directly behind your house, then your house will not be in the way, as the dish will be pointing roughly parallel to your house. The inclination will be close to the same as your Sky dish, with all satellites in between getting higher off the horizen as they approach 9 degrees west.

Trevord

As a rule of thumb I think the dish needs to be at a height so that the distance from the potential obstacle is 2 to 3 times the difference between height the dish is placed at and the height of obstacle. Its down to simple geometry in the end.

ie. if dish is 10 feet off ground and house is in path to sat then, if house is say 30 feet high, distance from house to dish would need to be 40 to 60 feet.

Based on your description it sounds like your plan might work.

beer enigma

Thanks - I'm heading out with as compass this weekend

Paul007 - that astra-ses site is excellent - thank you

watty

RG6 has FOUR TIMES the loss at 2000Mhz of CT100 / PF100 cable. Thus only 15m run.

My shed is behind house about 20 ft away. For 42E though dish is "pointing" at house the signal is fine as the elevation is OK. The dish is about 40ft east of the house behind and 45W is also OK.

With a sloped roof, the intersect distance is further than the simple top of the gutter.