Dish location on new home

[TheKrell]

I just signed a new 2-yr agreement with Dish to get their best promo without careful consideration of where I might be able to locate a dish on my new home. Don't judge.

It turns out that the home is situated facing SSE, so according to the DishPointer website, it looks like a clear LOS if the dish were mounted just about anywhere on the western side of the house. The only problem I see is it has to look over my cherry tree in front of the house. So my tentative plan is to affix it to the side of the house near the back. My elevation is 44.9 deg so this should work.

How can the antenna be grounded? The electrical service entrance is on the east side of the house.

 

[Pepper]

Mrs Pepper told me back in the day, she didn't want anything attached to the house, so all my dish antennae are in the back yard on poles. Line of sight is over the house. This also makes it easier to get to if you ever want to adjust something. Also when it's in the yard and they'll be burying the cable (presumably with messenger-ground wire), it might be an easier path to your grounding point before entering the house.

 

[tjboston5676]

I just signed a new 2-yr agreement with Dish to get their best promo without careful consideration of where I might be able to locate a dish on my new home. Don't judge.

It turns out that the home is situated facing SSE, so according to the DishPointer website, it looks like a clear LOS if the dish were mounted just about anywhere on the western side of the house. The only problem I see is it has to look over my cherry tree in front of the house. So my tentative plan is to affix it to the side of the house near the back. My elevation is 44.9 deg so this should work.

How can the antenna be grounded? The electrical service entrance is on the east side of the house.

Mount the dish where there's line of site then run messenger cable (zero breaks) to grounding location and install ground block.

While technically it should be grounding per the NEC, 90% of installations do go ungrounded. Most likely it won't be an issue. In my experience an ungrounded system will cause issues on maybe 0.5% of all ungrounded installations, and usually it's because they already have other electrical issues.

 

[primestar31]

I just signed a new 2-yr agreement with Dish to get their best promo without careful consideration of where I might be able to locate a dish on my new home. Don't judge.

It turns out that the home is situated facing SSE, so according to the DishPointer website, it looks like a clear LOS if the dish were mounted just about anywhere on the western side of the house. The only problem I see is it has to look over my cherry tree in front of the house. So my tentative plan is to affix it to the side of the house near the back. My elevation is 44.9 deg so this should work.

How can the antenna be grounded? The electrical service entrance is on the east side of the house.

EVES mount. Don't punch holes in your roof. My tv tower is on the opposite side of my house from my service entrance, so I have a ground rod at the tower, and also a 6 gauge solid copper wire running from the tower, all the way to the ground rod by the service entrance to bond them together.

 

[tjboston5676]

EVES mount. Don't punch holes in your roof. My tv tower is on the opposite side of my house from my service entrance, so I have a ground rod at the tower, and also a 6 gauge solid copper wire running from the tower, all the way to the ground rod by the service entrance to bond them together.

This works too. I'm glad you bonded them together. Most people just drive a rod in the ground and think that's good enough. But it must be bonded to the house ground as well.
An incorrecty grounded system can do much more harm than a system not grounded at all.

 

[HipKat]

I just signed a new 2-yr agreement with Dish to get their best promo without careful consideration of where I might be able to locate a dish on my new home. Don't judge.

It turns out that the home is situated facing SSE, so according to the DishPointer website, it looks like a clear LOS if the dish were mounted just about anywhere on the western side of the house. The only problem I see is it has to look over my cherry tree in front of the house. So my tentative plan is to affix it to the side of the house near the back. My elevation is 44.9 deg so this should work.

How can the antenna be grounded? The electrical service entrance is on the east side of the house.

Grounding is not the mandatory thing it used to be. In-house guys will still get QA'd on it but it's not something I'd get too worried about

 

[TheKrell]

I now have a situation. What dispointer.com says is my satellites are 183° magnetic. That looks good for mounting the satellite dish to the back of the basement. The elevation is 45°, that goes over my trees in the front yard.

Did I leave well enough alone? No I did not. I downloaded and installed Halo RV which is by winegard, and I got the AR application running. It shows one of the satellites in the house. So I went to the opposite side, the East side, and I have the same situation. Worse still, I see two different results depending upon whether I enter my address, or rather use the GPS to locate me.

Which one is right?

 

[dishdude]

I just checked and Dishpointer.com is accurate for me, so I would go with that. With a 45 degree elevation you should have plenty of options.

 

[telstar_1]

In 20 years of satellite I never grounded.

 

[TheKrell]

Why in heck do I have to confirm every "like" via a new web page before it happens? Nuts.

I just checked and Dishpointer.com is accurate for me, so I would go with that. With a 45 degree elevation you should have plenty of options.

Thanks. I think you're right.

According to Dispointer, the azimuth (true) is 172.5 deg while the azimuth (magnetic) is 183.0. If Halo RV erroneously corrected for magnetic north and put the satellites on my AR screen as though they were really 172, that would explain what I observed. Yeah, those are nowhere near one another. I was shocked at the position on my phone's screen.

 

[dishdude]

Why in heck do I have to confirm every "like" via a new web page before it happens? Nuts.

Thanks. I think you're right.

According to Dispointer, the azimuth (true) is 172.5 deg while the azimuth (magnetic) is 183.0. If Halo RV erroneously corrected for magnetic north and put the satellites on my AR screen as though they were really 172, that would explain what I observed. Yeah, those are nowhere near one another. I was shocked at the position on my phone's screen.

Your phone might not be properly calibrated.

 

[TheKrell]

And now the confirmation screen went away. Huh.

 

[MikeD-C05]

In 20 years of satellite I never grounded.

That's why you are not grounded in your posts, so much.

 

[TheKrell]

Your phone might not be properly calibrated. I downloaded and installed a compass app on this new phone, which is a Motorola razr. The two compasses I borrowed from a friend agree with each other, and the compass on this phone thinks it's 30° different. I see no way to fix that.

 

[dishdude]

TheKrell

Try calibrating your phone in the Google Maps app.

How to Calibrate the Compass on Android to Improve Device Location Accuracy

Calibrating your Android compass can help improve your location accuracy in Google Maps.

www.howtogeek.com

 

[TheKrell]

Try calibrating your phone in the Google Maps app.

I did before downloading that compass app and seeing just how far off to the east it is. It did put my location closer to where I was, so at least waving it around in a figure 8 did something.