Dish weather shield

[ste001]

We live in a communal block of flats a couple of questions I have for anyone who wants a crack at them.

Our 80cm round dish was replaced yesterday after starting to show its age after only 1 year. It is situated on the side of the lift tower and is the only place it can be mounted. It is directly in the line of some severe weather. Gale force winds and lashing rain. Gale force winds usually knock the dish out of alignment.
I have had the idea of having made a cube frame with high grade steel (to withstand the fierce weather) welded on. Imagine a big cube covering the whole dish, take out the panel to allow the LNB to see the satellite, directly opposite that make some holes to allow wind to blow through. The panel which should be flat against the wall would of couse be removed to fit over the dish.
(Where the frame meets the wall make some sort of flange to be able to attach it to the wall securely with large bolts.) Secure the whole frame around the dish and hopefully the dish will be protected from severe weather and won't get blown out of alignment again.

I hear there is a new thinner cable that can be pulled through the existing cable thus making it easier when upgrading apartments/flats to SKY+and would save bringing the extra cable through the wall.
Is this right?
Anybody got any better ideas?

[bob1]

Originally Posted by ste001

I hear there is a new thinner cable that can be pulled through the existing cable thus making it easier when upgrading apartments/flats to SKY+and would save bringing the extra cable through the wall.
Is this right?
Anybody got any better ideas?

don't you just love the net,where did you see this info.

[Nimby]

Boxing in a dish isn't likely to be beneficial and may actually make things much worse. It would probably look awful particularly after it rusts.

The dish's clear view of the sky would be restricted if you made the box too small or too deep. This would be just like downsizing the dish to 60cm or smaller.

I think you just need a much better quality dish mounting and/or brackets that don't allow movement in a gale.

There is no reason you couldn't use metal struts or straps from the edge rim of the dish back to a solid wall fixing bolt to brace it against the wind. Don't distort the dish or move it out of alignment in doing so.

Dishes are supposed to be out in all weathers. If yours was poor after one year, whatever the weather, then it was a very poor dish indeed. Quality dishes can and do last for decades on the tops of mountains and very high masts.

[SkyAdam]

Have to agree with nimby old boy. If its properly installed, the dish wont move. get a decent Engineer, one that can fix a dish properly to a mount. Iv'e installed zone1 dishes in the most awkward of places anything up to 10 yrs ago and Ive never been called back to them. Z1 dishes are a little over 80cm, they make excellent com dishes so same bit of kit really.

[ste001]

Thanx Nimby sent u an email.

In a conversation with a lady at SKY about communal dishes she mentioned that SKY was trialing a cable which actually was the size as normal sat cable but had 2 cores of cable which would be great for places like houses and apartments where only 1 cable could be used.

I do not know if it mentions in any other thread but SKY are to help flats and apartment blocks to upgrade to SKY+ so making them able to recieve HI Def.

The dish has just been replaced by a round dish TRIAX TD64 black
if it helps anyone

[bob1]

I get what you mean now about the cable,your wording made it sound like the cable was going to fit down inside the other.
I have heard of CT63 twin satellite cable which is just two cables joined together,a smaller cable would mean more loss down the cable and may be no good for long runs.

[Nimby]

My 80cm Nokia dish on two standoff brackets and a heavy pipe didn't move until the hurricane of '99. One of the expansion bolts pulled right out of the breezeblock wall! After that I bolted right through the wall with spreader washers inside and out and it never moved again.

Eventually it was replaced with a Wave Frontier Toroidal dish to get rid of the terribly slow Nokia motor mount. This dish hasn't moved in years despite terrible storms with very high wind speeds.

Where there's a will there's always a way.