Distance from LNB/Motor to receiver??

[bry65]

Hi All,

I have a Triax 1.1m dish, single LNB, a Technomate 2200 Super DiSEqC motor and a TM5400 CI Super. Basically it is my first motorised system.
Due to the awkward location of my semi detached house, North/East/West facing walls and other obstacles, I would prefer to ground mount the dish in my garden. I have a 120ft garden and quite near the back there is a really good clear line of sight to the south but my concern is this: Will such a distance, say 150ft of cable from the motor/LNB to the receiver effect the running of the system and/or deteriorate the signal quality?

Also, can anyone recommend a good method of securing the dish to the ground. It is grassed at the moment and I have a 5ft Scaffold pole. Could I simply concrete it in making sure it was level and plumb of course. Or would I need to put flags down and use a steel ground mount? If so, any idea where I could find a reasonably priced sturdy set up from?

Any help would be much appreciated!
Thanks

[Robbo]

Hi,
45m of benchmarked cable such as wf100 should work fine.

It depends how high you need the dish, if it can go really low, a 5ft scaffold concreted into the ground by a couple of feet should do it.

I have mine on an 8ft scaffold in the ground, the hole is 3ft deep with about 5ft out, and it is fine. How deep you need to go also depends on how hard or soft the ground is of course. A bit of suck it and see maybe?

Actually with mine, I dug a hole 2ft deep, and hit solid chalk, and couldn't go any deeper easily. So I smacked the pole in with a sledge hammer another foot.

[bry65]

Thanks for that Robbo. Did you need to secure a large area with concrete around your scaffold? The ground here is quite firm.
I thought at first the 5ft pole might be a bit too short but I should be able to get away with it. I do have a clear line of sight 40 degrees east and west at an angle of about 20 degrees elevation from where the LNB will be (I think that's the way to do it??). I should bypass the garden fences quite easily if my calculations are correct!. If not, I will have to get a bigger piece of scaffold.
Any potential problems from your experience that you can advise of re a garden mounted dish? I have trees directly behind where my dish will be so could have a bird sh&t problem according to my daughter!!!
Also, do you recommend using some sort of cable guard to protect the cable from the elements, or is there no need if I just clip it to the base of my fence and run it back towards the house?

Thanks again
Bry

[martin-f]

i am no expert but if you look @ s*y cable there is nothing protecting the cable so you should be fine with that
there is a calculation for the distance to obstacles but i have forgot sorry
but if you get the pole bang plumb you can get scaffold clips and extra lenth of pole to raise the dish
the last one i fitted in the ground i used a washing line post the wrong way up but the garden is not prone to wind

[Robbo]

No, I just dug a hole the same size as my spade, maybe less than a foot accross.

Mounting the dish on the ground is most convenient for fiddling with, at the expense of the arc obviously. I can get 42E to 30W on mine, due to me house getting in the way.

At 40 degrees azimuth either side, the elevation of the satellite may drop below 20 degrees of course, dishpointer will tell you based on your location.


Yes the cable doesn't need protecting from the elements as such, but optionally you may want to protect it from forces, such as animals or clumsy people with garden tools. It should be OK clipped to the fence, or if buried, some sleeving could be used, or plumbing waste pipe or similar.
I just have mine chucked behind the bushes and stuff, it has been OK so far, though it's cheap enough to change if I get a problem.

Yep scaffold 'swivels' are good for joining scaffold poles together if need, I use the a lot, but additionally I use some long U-bolts around the two poles, to take up any slack in the 'swivels'

[bry65]

Originally Posted by Robbo

Hi,
45m of benchmarked cable such as wf100 should work fine.

Would RG6 do the job as I already have a pack of this? Or is it a definite no no due to the 50 meter 'run' of cable that i will need?

[bry65]

Originally Posted by Robbo

No, I just dug a hole the same size as my spade, maybe less than a foot accross.

Mounting the dish on the ground is most convenient for fiddling with, at the expense of the arc obviously. I can get 42E to 30W on mine, due to me house getting in the way.

At 40 degrees azimuth either side, the elevation of the satellite may drop below 20 degrees of course, dishpointer will tell you based on your location.

Yes the cable doesn't need protecting from the elements as such, but optionally you may want to protect it from forces, such as animals or clumsy people with garden tools. It should be OK clipped to the fence, or if buried, some sleeving could be used, or plumbing waste pipe or similar.
I just have mine chucked behind the bushes and stuff, it has been OK so far, though it's cheap enough to change if I get a problem.


Yep scaffold 'swivels' are good for joining scaffold poles together if need, I use the a lot, but additionally I use some long U-bolts around the two poles, to take up any slack in the 'swivels'

Yes, checked on the site and I seem to be okay with a 20 elevation up to 40 degrees West like you say.
Some great tips here Robbo and many thanks aswell to Martin

[Robbo]

Originally Posted by bry65

Would RG6 do the job as I already have a pack of this? Or is it a definite no no due to the 50 meter 'run' of cable that i will need?

Dunno, frankly. I just stick to the good stuff as it has been tested by the CAI. RG6 on the hand has variably quality.

Spose you could roll out 50m of it and check,if you are really intent on using the cheap crap.

[bry65]

Originally Posted by Robbo

Dunno, frankly. I just stick to the good stuff as it has been tested by the CAI. RG6 on the hand has variably quality.

Spose you could roll out 50m of it and check,if you are really intent on using the cheap crap.

Yeah, I took your advice and ordered the wf100 this morning. Read up about it and it deffo appears to be the stuff to use. Cheers

[bry65]

Having real trouble with my installation. I couldn't find Thor as a starting point so swivelled the dish around and picked up Hotbird....or so I thought. When I checked through the signal indicators of the other sats on my Technomate 5400 I could also pick up Eurobird 9e, Amos 4w, Nilesat 7w, Telecom 8 aswell as Hotbird 13e without moving the motor/dish/lnb!!?? I think I am actually point at Hotbird but this has thrown me and it's gone dark now so I will have to resume tomorrow. My scaffold pole is perfectly plumb and my dish, lnb and motor all appear to be in line. Something is clearly very wrong - please help!