How to mount a satellite dish

[TheBiscuits]

7 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

No experience of sky Q but just wondering why you’d want it on a boat? Its point seems to be easy multi-room, and 4K (which is only pointful on a large telly). Also, I’m struggling to corroborate your comment about needing a bigger dish.

The duck likes a different set of channels to Dr Bob, so needs multiroom

More seriously I suspect the bigger dish thing is either 1) upselling  or 2) the little travel dishes can't fit the quad LNB on their bracket and still fold.

The motorhome gang do do fully auto tracking Sky Q dishes for about £2000, but Dr Bob was pulling faces at a £160 mounting system earlier. 

[Dr Bob]

We have sky q at home so now bring the sky box to the boat. It would be ok if we still had sky hd but we don't. Too difficult to change.

On the dish size, Martyn from travelsat tried the wideband lnb on his dish system and found the signal strength much too low, as they are small dishes. He recommended buying the standard zone one dish and then modifying his mount to take the lnb. The zone one dish however is a perfect signal. The wideband lnb is the same size as the normal one. Travelsat uses a smaller dish and a smaller lnb so it could have been an lnb issue that Martin had rather than dish size.

The duck watches what we watch. Mrs Bobs in control.

Edited March 9, 2018 by Dr Bob

[Sea Dog]

I inherited a small satellite dish with the boat which I found ok but hardly worth the faff of setting up when at the mooring but definitely not worth the space it took up when on the move.  Whilst Satcomm was in my professional bailiwick, I should declare my hand as someone not thinking the telly is sufficiently important to be worth a lot of hassle.

It strikes me your mount has too many moving parts, particularly given the large size of your dish.  Each joint is a weak spot, so you need simplicity and fewer of them. The angle of elevation to geostationary satellites feeding UK TV doesn't change much from one canal network cruising limit to another (something like 23 to 26 degrees?) and may well hardly move at all across your stamping ground. I'd be looking to fix that angle of elevation, making adjustment possible but requiring tools. So for quite long periods, possibly always, you just need to be able to point in azimuth to cope with the lie of your evening's mooring, so a much more rigid mount with fewer moving parts is possible. 

I don't know how much help that might be: I'm just throwing a bit of engineering perspective into the mix,and it could actually be bolleaux to a mobile satellite TV buff, which is why I declared my hand earlier! 

[nicknorman]

1 hour ago, Dr Bob said:

We have sky q at home so now bring the sky box to the boat. It would be ok if we still had sky hd but we don't. Too difficult to change.

On the dish size, Martyn from travelsat tried the wideband lnb on his dish system and found the signal strength much too low, as they are small dishes. He recommended buying the standard zone one dish and then modifying his mount to take the lnb. The zone one dish however is a perfect signal. The wideband lnb is the same size as the normal one. Travelsat uses a smaller dish and a smaller lnb so it could have been an lnb issue that Martin had rather than dish size.

The duck watches what we watch. Mrs Bobs in control.

One downside of larger dishes is that they are much more focussed. ie much less tolerant of misalignment. Not a problem on a fixed installation on a house, but on a boat that bobs around and rocks when people get up for a pee, I think you may have problems with signal drop out especially if the boat is pointing NE/SW.

With our Travelsat dish we normally have 100% signal strength and 100% quality on our Humax HD box so I am surprised that a correctly-configured and located (at the point of focus) Sky Q LNB would not work adequately on the same dish.

Edited March 9, 2018 by nicknorman

[OldGoat]

Confused - I am -

From what I have gleaned (too much of a skinflint to go anywhere near Sky), Sky Q appears to be nothing more than a switching system and the LNB is a Quattro rather than a Quad. I put a switching system at home years ago when our terrestrial signal was rubbish but don't us satellite anymore - principally because the elderly Humax sat receivers are a pain (relatively) to use. The Quad LNB does need a larger dish, mine's a 70cm - not really suitable for a boat!

However

If you've given up your Sky 'benefits' I'm guessing that the box reverts to a normal receiver, so that you can use either a conventional dish or something like a flat panel which I've plugged on here recently. My assumption is based on Sky's help pages which state that a Q can be used in a normal distribution system by using an adaptor box.

FWIW, I mount my dish / now flat panel via a piece of aluminium  tubing on the front deck fixed to the gas locker. I remove the dish and its braketry when cruising and stow it in the cabin. The flat dish works much better than the offset focus one - no sticky out bits.

? Might be worth following up

More complicated than I thought - in part as a result of patchy / incomplete information.

One question for Dr. Bob is - how much of your Sky Q functionality will you retain? Methinks  - recording, HD all gone?? so is it worth doing at all?

 

Edited March 9, 2018 by OldGoat
Further research

[Onewheeler]

Mast clamp onto your handrail e.g. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/8-NUT-SHELLEY-CLAMP-2-x-2-UNIVERSAL-AERIAL-POLE-MAST-CB-HAM-TV-BRACKET/162874753698?hash=item25ec1782a2:g:xm0AAOSwpzdWtQF6  Add a stub mast and a couple of u-bolts to the back of the dish. Slacken the bolts for azimuth and elevation adjustment.

[Dr Bob]

5 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

I inherited a small satellite dish with the boat which I found ok but hardly worth the faff of setting up when at the mooring but definitely not worth the space it took up when on the move.  Whilst Satcomm was in my professional bailiwick, I should declare my hand as someone not thinking the telly is sufficiently important to be worth a lot of hassle.

It strikes me your mount has too many moving parts, particularly given the large size of your dish.  Each joint is a weak spot, so you need simplicity and fewer of them. The angle of elevation to geostationary satellites feeding UK TV doesn't change much from one canal network cruising limit to another (something like 23 to 26 degrees?) and may well hardly move at all across your stamping ground. I'd be looking to fix that angle of elevation, making adjustment possible but requiring tools. So for quite long periods, possibly always, you just need to be able to point in azimuth to cope with the lie of your evening's mooring, so a much more rigid mount with fewer moving parts is possible. 

I don't know how much help that might be: I'm just throwing a bit of engineering perspective into the mix,and it could actually be bolleaux to a mobile satellite TV buff, which is why I declared my hand earlier! 

The main reason for putting the dish on the boat was for the winter period when we are in the marina 4 days a week. If it can be moved on/off the roof and easily rotated (as it is now) then I will try it during our 6 month 'summer' cruise. Not a drama if it doesnt work well, until next winter when back in the marina. The TV is on a lot at the moment but once we are out and about maybe only an hour or so a night.

I agree with too many moving parts and the elevation is not too important as that should be constant. What I need is some sort of rotation plate with thumscrew fastening. As Rusty said, the 3/8 bolt will be a weak point. Surely there must be some sort of rotation plate available?

[Dr Bob]

5 hours ago, nicknorman said:

One downside of larger dishes is that they are much more focussed. ie much less tolerant of misalignment. Not a problem on a fixed installation on a house, but on a boat that bobs around and rocks when people get up for a pee, I think you may have problems with signal drop out especially if the boat is pointing NE/SW.

With our Travelsat dish we normally have 100% signal strength and 100% quality on our Humax HD box so I am surprised that a correctly-configured and located (at the point of focus) Sky Q LNB would not work adequately on the same dish.

Martyn from Travelsat did try a sky Q lnb on his small dish and it only got a 25% strenght/quality signal - just not good enough. It could well have been that the lnb was not correctly configured for his dish. He did sort it out for a customer by combining his mount and lnb holder with a sky zone 1 dish (60cm by 40cm oval) and sky q lnb. He was adamant I would need the zone 1 dish.

I take your point about movement on the boat and signal drop out. In the marina with the boat pointed SE/NW it has been fine so we will give it a whirl.

[Dr Bob]

2 hours ago, OldGoat said:

Confused - I am -

From what I have gleaned (too much of a skinflint to go anywhere near Sky), Sky Q appears to be nothing more than a switching system and the LNB is a Quattro rather than a Quad. I put a switching system at home years ago when our terrestrial signal was rubbish but don't us satellite anymore - principally because the elderly Humax sat receivers are a pain (relatively) to use. The Quad LNB does need a larger dish, mine's a 70cm - not really suitable for a boat!

However

If you've given up your Sky 'benefits' I'm guessing that the box reverts to a normal receiver, so that you can use either a conventional dish or something like a flat panel which I've plugged on here recently. My assumption is based on Sky's help pages which state that a Q can be used in a normal distribution system by using an adaptor box.

FWIW, I mount my dish / now flat panel via a piece of aluminium  tubing on the front deck fixed to the gas locker. I remove the dish and its braketry when cruising and stow it in the cabin. The flat dish works much better than the offset focus one - no sticky out bits.

? Might be worth following up

More complicated than I thought - in part as a result of patchy / incomplete information.

One question for Dr. Bob is - how much of your Sky Q functionality will you retain? Methinks  - recording, HD all gone?? so is it worth doing at all?

 

The Sky HD lnb uses a voltage into the lnb to select either vertical or horizontal, and a 22 kHz tone to select high or low band. Each output from the lnb therefore has 4 types of signal. The sky q lnb is totally different - two outputs only, one vertical and one horizontal, and then because it is wideband - ie much wider band width using the old terrestrial tv band, it can get all its channels without switching. I think all of this means that a sky q lnb will only work with sky q and no other quackerlite signals. Sky q cant recieve signals that require the 'old' voltage or tone select. ........So, in answer to your question....we will use all of the sky q functionality.....recording works well, 4 channels at a time and it is HD. I can rig it up to the 4G router and download in SD rather than HD (as BT TV seems to want).

I do like the interface on sky q, quite a bit better than the old sky hd.

[Dr Bob]

52 minutes ago, Onewheeler said:

Mast clamp onto your handrail e.g. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/8-NUT-SHELLEY-CLAMP-2-x-2-UNIVERSAL-AERIAL-POLE-MAST-CB-HAM-TV-BRACKET/162874753698?hash=item25ec1782a2:g:xm0AAOSwpzdWtQF6  Add a stub mast and a couple of u-bolts to the back of the dish. Slacken the bolts for azimuth and elevation adjustment.

Thanks for that. That's what our terrestrial antenna is mounted on the boat with. I am happy about adjusting the elevation that way but wanted something a bit 'smoother to turn the azimuth. It may however be the best way forward. In that case, is there a fitting where you have the stub mast coming vertically upwards from the handrail clamp - which connects to the stub mast coming down from the dish? Its easy to match the mast diameters so one fits inside the other so the dish rotates, but how do you clamp it in position. I have not found anything like that on the internet ....yet.

[cuthound]

You could secure it with duck tape. 

 

 

  OK I'll get me coat.

[Dr Bob]

3 minutes ago, cuthound said:

You could secure it with duck tape. 

 

 

  OK I'll get me coat.

I would!

[Machpoint005]

1 hour ago, Dr Bob said:

The main reason for putting the dish on the boat was for the winter period when we are in the marina 4 days a week.

That being so, wouldn't it be better sitting on a tripod on solid ground?

[Dr Bob]

2 minutes ago, Machpoint005 said:

That being so, wouldn't it be better sitting on a tripod on solid ground?

Yes, but it would be nice to use use it for the other 3 days when it is dark and cold and we are out and about.

[Machpoint005]

1 minute ago, Dr Bob said:

Yes, but it would be nice to use use it for the other 3 days when it is dark and cold and we are out and about.

Fairy Nuff - the problem wasn't fully defined! 4/7 of week is better than 0/7 though.

[Dr Bob]

1 minute ago, Machpoint005 said:

Fairy Nuff - the problem wasn't fully defined! 4/7 of week is better than 0/7 though.

Sorry Mach, I didnt think we were allowed to fully define any problem issue on this forum in one post. I thought the rules said that you had to provide it in small snipits but ensure that most of the data are is out by the end of the second page.

[WotEver]

1 hour ago, Dr Bob said:

Surely there must be some sort of rotation plate available?

What I knocked up for the caravan was a bush that attached to the bottom of the dish and sat inside a heavy duty tripod (ex PA speaker-stand). I tapped the stand for a thumbscrew. 

Drop the dish into the stand, rotate to about 145 degrees, tweak for max signal, tighten thumbscrew. I’m sure you could find or fabricate something similar. 

[Dr Bob]

3 minutes ago, WotEver said:

What I knocked up for the caravan was a bush that attached to the bottom of the dish and sat inside a heavy duty tripod (ex PA speaker-stand). I tapped the stand for a thumbscrew. 

Drop the dish into the stand, rotate to about 145 degrees, tweak for max signal, tighten thumbscrew. I’m sure you could find or fabricate something similar. 

Yes, this is the sort of thing that would work well. Problem is that I havent got the tools to be able to sort it on the boat. I would have to get something fabricated.....hence why I am trying to find something off the shelf.

[Onewheeler]

1 hour ago, Dr Bob said:

 Its easy to match the mast diameters so one fits inside the other so the dish rotates, but how do you clamp it in position.

Slot the outer one and secure it with a Julibee clip? Drill a hole in the outer and tap a thread for a clamping bolt? Or just use the screws on the u-bolt or mast clamp, and the elevation bolt on the back of the dish. Put wing nuts on to make it easier to slacken and tighten?

[philjw]

What about using a suitable kee clamp to join the two stubs?
Quite a few to choose fron here:
http://ipmfittings.co.uk/key-clamps/

[Dr Bob]

5 minutes ago, Onewheeler said:

Slot the outer one and secure it with a Julibee clip? Drill a hole in the outer and tap a thread for a clamping bolt? Or just use the screws on the u-bolt or mast clamp, and the elevation bolt on the back of the dish. Put wing nuts on to make it easier to slacken and tighten?

The more I think about it, this is the way to go. I can get an outer tube with a clamping bolt made up. That is the answer. Thanks.

[Dr Bob]

8 minutes ago, philjw said:

What about using a suitable kee clamp to join the two stubs?
Quite a few to choose fron here:
http://ipmfittings.co.uk/key-clamps/

Thanks Phil. I had seen these before.

[MtB]

Why not listen to the radio instead. FAR simpler....

[Dr Bob]

9 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Why not listen to the radio instead. FAR simpler....

Hang on! It's taken me 47 posts to work out how to mount this quackerlite dish and we have finally solved it.

Shall we start again? How do I attach a radio antenna?

[TheBiscuits]

6 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

Hang on! It's taken me 47 posts to work out how to mount this quackerlite dish and we have finally solved it.

Shall we start again? How do I attach a radio antenna?

Stick it on one of those aerial magmounts!