Anyone paint a dish?

[phil-pham]

I'm installing a dish for my parents at a new construction, and was considering painting the gray to either white like the soffits, or beige to match the siding. I am not planning on mounting on the roof, but rather I will put the dish under the eves of the house. I'm sure gray looks good with most roofs but does not look good on the side of the house. Since we live in Wisconsin, I have found it is better to be under the eve of the roof and snow collects in the dish when it is on the top. Usually it melts in a few days but I like mine on the side of my house.

Does anyone have experience with this? Do you need a certain paint to stick on top of the gray? Will I have signal loss?

Thanks for your advice,
Phil

[kturcotte]

I've painted my dish before. Stay away from glossy paints, and do NOT paint the LNB, at least the plastic part. I suppose you could COMPLETELY cover the plastic part (White part) with duct tape or something similiar and paint it, but if you get any paint on the white part, you're all done.

[steuert]

I've painted a couple of dishes with a flat latex paint to match the house. No problems at all - once I kept the receiver tuned to the signal strength meter to see if there was any problem, and signal strength remained exactly the same as I painted the dish. Ordinary exterior latex house paint seems to adhere to the dish very well - no need for a primer or other special preparation, other than cleaning the dish well.

Follow kturcotte's advice about avoiding glossy paint - according to DTV this could result in creating a "hot spot" for the signal and damage the LNB. IMO, no reason to paint the white plastic lens cover on the LNB, as it's not very conspicuous and you could interfere with reception.

DTV also cautions not to use lead-based paint, but AFAIK this hasn't been made for several years so it's not likely to be a problem.

[phil-pham]

Thank you both for your experienced advice.