No line of sight for HD dish

4512 Views 20 Replies 16 Participants Last post by Mr2sday, Mar 16, 2006

kwofford

Discussion Starter · Feb 12, 2005

So I bought the HR10-250, and the installers came today to put in the new dish, but couldn't because there was no line of sight to the 3 satellites.

It's mostly because of a tree on a neighbor's property. But assuming the neighbor agrees to it, I'm sure that it would cost quite a bit to have someone come and trim the branches 30 or 40 feet in the air. Not to mention that trimming the branches is a bit of a crap shoot. The installers made clear that they could not advise me that trimming the tree would guarantee that I would have line of sight. So unless I have one of whatever the device is that they use to check line of sight, I could have the tree trimmed and still not be able to get the dish installed.

And then I wondered about the new satellites in the future. Will they be spread across the sky even further, making more trimming necessary, or even making it impossible for me to receive them because of other trees, etc.?

Maybe I'll have to switch to cable after all.

1 - 20 of 21 Posts

Fluffybear

· #2 · Feb 12, 2005

Is this the only place where you can install your dish?

Could you possibly mount the dish on the other side of the house? You might be amazed that moving the dish a few feet one way or the other sometimes will resolve such an issue.

Ed Campbell

· #3 · Feb 12, 2005

One of my occasional fits of fancy involves FTA [free-to-air] satellite DX-ing. The toroidal dish I've considered can handle up to 16 lnb's. Since my D* dish occupies a satisfactory spot that just allows clearing the trees in our courtyard, I've had to think about other locations.

The simplest was setting a steel post in concrete about 10-20 feet east of the house and trenching coax over to where it would be useful. Not the world's biggest construction project and one which would open just about the whole of the southern sky to view.

kwofford

Discussion Starter · #4 · Feb 12, 2005

Fluffybear said:
Is this the only place where you can install your dish?

Could you possibly mount the dish on the other side of the house? You might be amazed that moving the dish a few feet one way or the other sometimes will resolve such an issue.

The installers checked the whole roof. I have a pretty small house. I had assumed that the new dish could be in the same place as the old one. No such luck.

Fluffybear

· #5 · Feb 13, 2005

kwofford said:
The installers checked the whole roof. I have a pretty small house. I had assumed that the new dish could be in the same place as the old one. No such luck.

As suggested by others, maybe you could mount a pole somewhere in the yard and direct bury your cables.

My only other suggestion involves a Chain Saw

Oknarf

· #6 · Feb 13, 2005

kwofford said:
...but couldn't because there was no line of sight to the 3 satellites...

Just wait until they add new birds and it's a larger and or multiple dish with line of site to X number of satellites. All you need is a clear view of the southern hemisphere.

DTV TiVo Dealer

· #7 · Feb 13, 2005

Literally hundreds of times when DIRECTV said no line of site my technicians we able to get all 3 satellites.

Just last week I was called by a DIRECTV executive friend, to see if we could get the 18x20 to work at a senior executives house where DIRECTV sent 6 different senior technicians. DIRECTV moved the dish twice, replaced all of the cables, switch and LNB head, still no luck. Finally, they said no chance to get the 119 due to a tree.

My tech. leveled the mast and had the strongest signal possible in lass than 5 minutes.

I would belive that you can get all 3 satellite to work somewhere on your roof or in the yard as referenced in posts above. It just takes an experienced tech. who is a little creative. If you want to try the same location your dish is already mounted and the neighbor is willing to trim the tree top, coordinate the tree surgeon and satellite tech. on the same day/time and work hard to make both parties timely.

-Robert

See less See more

aaronwt

· #8 · Feb 13, 2005

I have yet to figure out why the techs don't bring a dish to actually test the signal in a specific location. The technicians that came out to my place were clueless. They spent over 40 hours(over a couple of weeks) and still couldn't get all 3 satellites. I had bought a round dish off Ebay and in just a few minutes found a location where I could get all three satellites(just 3 to 4 feet from the original location). And the problem was a building next door was in the way. they spent 40 hours and assumed that the dish was in the proper location. They had the gall to tell me I was in the only lcoation that receieved signals from two satellelites at the same time which caused problems, yeah right.
So if you find yourself in a situatiion where a truck from MASTEC pulls up, I suggest you call DirecTV right away and have them send someone else out. It will be a cold day in hell before I let someone from MASTEC near my equipment again. MASTEC SUCKS!

This was over 3 years ago and everytime I think about it, my blood starts boiling.

See less See more

kwofford

Discussion Starter · #9 · Feb 13, 2005

Does anyone know about the position of the new satellites that will carry the MPEG 4 local channels? Will they require a larger area of the sky to be visible?

aaronwt

· #10 · Feb 14, 2005

I think they are supposed to be at 99 and 103 degrees. Hopefully the launches will occur without any problems.

Seminole

· #11 · Feb 14, 2005

Thought I would throw my 2 cents in. I have 3 dishes set up to hit each bird directly because of tree problems so maybe this would be an option for you?

Good luck and don't give up as I am sure one way or another you can get this done.

edrock200

· #12 · Feb 14, 2005

I setup 2 dishes at my bro-in-laws so he could get 101 and 119 (for locals.) A multidish route almost always solves a line of site problem with the elliptical dishes.

Maik

· #13 · Feb 14, 2005

Because of large trees, I also have two dishes on my roof. At opposite ends of the roof. THREE different installers told me there was no line of sight. Finally, after lots of screaming, I convinced one to try the two dish route. Each of the first three told me that they would not try it as it goes against DTV policy for a "free" install.

Moral of the story...dont give up, there is a way, and most likely you will not need a hideous pole mount in your yard.

jportnoy

· #14 · Feb 14, 2005

I agree with the previous post that persistence is key. I had 3 different installers come before I was able to install a dish with LOS, and the third installer I found myself in the phonebook without using D*. However, a pole mount on the yard is not necessarily hideous, if it gets you what you want you learn to live with it.

Ed Campbell

· #15 · Feb 14, 2005

Actually, my better half would be happier with a pole mount and a dish that sits about 6' off the ground -- and hidden from the view of the house from the street behind a few small ornamental trees -- instead of the critter mounted up on the rear corner of the roof.

I'm just marking time until I see if rain fade proves to be much of an issue during our summer monsoon season. Then, if needed, the toroidal dish will be a solution to that --

-- plus allowing me the hardware to get deeper in debt with FTA lnb's and receiver.

billcoff

· #16 · Feb 14, 2005

I know this won't solve your problem, but I remember years ago when I wanted to go from a single LNB dish to the two LNB dish, a tree blocked the second satellite. My solution was to mount my dish on the tree that had been in the way and running 100 foot cables to the house. Worked fine. Then, when the local stations started going digital, I mounted a UHF antenna on top of the tree. One hundred feet down and one hundred feet to the house. The towers were 60 miles away, but it worked fine. I remember watching Jay Leno in HDTV.

DDayDawg

· #17 · Feb 15, 2005

If you start mounting things to trees you have to have VERY good grounding. Trees are natures lightining rods and get hit alot more often than would your little dish sitting on your roof. If you go this route just be sure that the grounding is foolproof....

pwhittle

· #18 · Mar 14, 2006

When I got my HiDef Tivo I had DirecTV move the dish to a very high part of the roof. That was 18 months ago and tok 3 installers to come before one would do it.

This last week I lost most of my signal off the two other satellites, and I suspect it is the trees getting in the way again.

Am I likely to get any help from DirecTV with a problem that started happening, or am I on my own to get it fixed.

Paul

stevel

· #19 · Mar 14, 2006

You're on your own.

cpgny9

· #20 · Mar 14, 2006

I too had an installer come out and tell me that I did not have a line of sight and could not get the 3 satellites needed for HD because there was a building in the way. Well . .. long story short....I felt that I could, so I ended up doing the install myself. Raise the Dish up about 5 feet on a pole on my roof and sure enough, I was (and still to date) able to get a stong satellite signal for all three

1 - 20 of 21 Posts

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.