How many actually Self-Install

[TNelson]

Hi guys,


Just wondering.

I understand that MANY.. MANY individuals are purchasing this FTA systems. Just on ebay I Imagine hundreds are sold everyday.

But I wonder...... Just how many of them actually self-install?

I imagine MANY try to do it with no success. Others might get it after a lot of trial and error.

And then I wonder how many people pay's a qualified tech to do it for them.

I work for a local sat dealer (dtv-dish) and so far in 2005 I know we have only received a handfull of individuals looking for help installing them.

So iam just wondering whats going on in the street when it comes to installing FTA.


Would like to read the opinions other have in this topic.

Thanks.....

 

[PSB]

I would say around 80% are self installs, 10% call a satellite installer. And the last 10% give up or give the system away.
This forum is here to help people set up their own systems!
We are here to Help!

 

[satseeker]

Well, I'm brand new to this but I heard about FTA from a friend a year ago. When I grew up, my father had 10 foot BUD and I thought it was great. I've known about BUDs for about 15 years but with my neighborhood restrictions, I can't have a a 10 foot dish. Like all the other lemmings, I shelled out for DirecTV and finally got sick and tired of paying for commercials.
When I found about FTA, I was all over it. Although I've know about it for a year, (15 if you include knowledge of C band feeds from my teen years) I researched them for several months before purchasing. My background is in information tech and I have worked for some of the largest software companies in the world, so I'm not afraid to search, read, tinker and cuss.
I installed the entire system, from digging a hole and concreting in a 9 foot steel post to mounting and pointing the 76cm dish, to setting up the receiver. The hardest part? Finding the info on how to set up the receiver. After getting the components connected and aligned, it probably took me 3 hours to read all I could and learn all about the lnb/diseqc and the receiver. The receiver (viewsat 2000 platinum) came with a completely worthless setup guide. It's worth starting a nice winter fire but I wanted/needed tech specs which I had to find on the net and with a few quickly answered questions here in this forum! Thanks guys!
Overall, having not seen or touched a satellite antenna in over 7 years since I installed my DirecTV, which I tossed in the trash today, I think I did a pretty good job. Total time for installation, including digging, concrete, wiring, dish alignment and receiver setup took a total of 7 hours and most of that was spent waiting for the concrete to harden up.
Eric

 

[ken2400]

Do note that there are many free music channels on 119W and 91W that you can get with the 18" dish and LNBF. Also NASA on 119W. So you many want to pull it back and and play with it?

Thanks guys!
Overall, having not seen or touched a satellite antenna in over 7 years since I installed my DirecTV, which I tossed in the trash today, I think I did a pretty good job.

 

[sidekick]

I have to say that self-installing my system was the best decision I made concerning FTA. You learn so much by going through the trials and tribulations of installing the unit yourself. An invaluable experience.

 

[havenx]

I installed my system myself as I hate paying for cable and I am not about to pay the high prices of direct tv and dish network. To me these television service providers are robber barons (see the historical meaning for the background). See the way it is supposed to work is that the commercials pay for the entertaining programs… So why the heck am I going to pay for a service that has already been paid for! AND sit through the ads that I am supposed to watch to see the sponsor’s new products! The whole process is redundant… I don’t understand it! It’s like McDonalds asking money for the sweet and sour sauce! WTF, it’s a condiment. OKAY, in an ideal world we would stop going to the McDonalds that charges for CONDEMNTS… But most people don’t because they are morons… The idea is to put the bad service, or the robber barons, out of business by boycotting their practices or services, but most Americans don’t… I will never understand why. At any rate, I heard about FTA stuff, it looked fun, it created a new hobby, and I don’t feel like a jackal sitting through the commercials.

Pretty much the setup was pretty cut and dry, and I thank the people from this forum for helping me through it. Setting the pole was really easy and probably took the most time. I don’t have much money so I asked around and found a satellite bone yard. The guy that runs it used to install data setups for gas stations and stuff. At any rate, he had an old 1m channel master dish. Great, I bought it for 25 bucks (later I found out that it was a steal). Oooookay, now I had to find a pole for that darn thing. I went to Lowes and the Home Depot but they did not have a pole large enough. I ended up going to an old local plumbing store and purchased a six foot 2 ½ inch (od) pipe (three feet of that baby is in the ground so it aint goin’ nowhere) Then I painted the pipe to rustproof it and sank it in 110 LBS of create (I went overboard on that just a bit) I read some reviews and found that the invacom OPH Dual Quad LNB was pretty sweet AND IT IS! Threw that baby on the channel master and BOOM SHAKA LOCKA! With a new Pansat 2700A that I got off ebay for 125 dollars with an 18inch useless POS dish, I was rollin’ on G13. Later with some help I found G10R and it’s great…. The way it should be! And then I found the free audio on EchoStar7-now had a use for the 18” dish.

I am sure that the networks condone their actions by saying, “oh yea, it’s our space on the sats, and we provide the services so it’s okay.” And I guess it is… But I consider the people that fall for that doubled played robber network, and baron TV a moron. I guess if a person is that much of a moron they probably could not install their own setup anyhow. I guess in a philosophical way Darwinism is SOL when it comes to intelligence and logic…

To answer the question more directly from what I know… I have talked to a few of the major sat equipment sellers on ebay and they say that a lot of people claim that the equipment is broken because they can’t find anything… So I am betting that there are a lot of people that never make it (I guess those people should have bought some bunny ears instead).

 

[Claude Greiner]

From running the Dishstore I can tell you this, about 75% of my customers will install themselves. These customers are all primarly on this board and do the install because they enjoy doing it and do not want an installer in their home.

Out of that, the other 25% are from the forum and either do not know how to install or would rather not be bothered with it and would much rather pay an installer.

On the other hand, 99% of my normal customers who call out of the phone book prefer a professional installation.

As far as ebay customers go, its about 50% both ways. 50% of the people know how to hook the stuff up, the other 50% have no clue on how to install but want to save money.

But the forums deffinitly bring a different type of customer. I can actually sell upgrades to customers here and they see the value in owning the equipment or paying for an HD DVR. As for customers who call out of the phone book, all the want is Free Free Free, they might want the HD DVR but will not pay for it.

Its so sterio typical, I got a special number for my phone book advertisement and a seperate number for the Dishstore.

If a customer wants a 942 and is on the Dishstore line I'll talk to them, and usually make a sale. If a customer calls on my phone book advertisement line for an HD DVR, I tell my employees not even to waste my time and just give them DISH Networks 800# because too many times I have spent an hour with a customer explaining all the features and nobody local ever wants to pay for anything!

 

[gizzer777]

Good Job!

Well, I'm brand new to this but I heard about FTA from a friend a year ago. When I grew up, my father had 10 foot BUD and I thought it was great. I've known about BUDs for about 15 years but with my neighborhood restrictions, I can't have a a 10 foot dish. Like all the other lemmings, I shelled out for DirecTV and finally got sick and tired of paying for commercials.
When I found about FTA, I was all over it. Although I've know about it for a year, (15 if you include knowledge of C band feeds from my teen years) I researched them for several months before purchasing. My background is in information tech and I have worked for some of the largest software companies in the world, so I'm not afraid to search, read, tinker and cuss.
I installed the entire system, from digging a hole and concreting in a 9 foot steel post to mounting and pointing the 76cm dish, to setting up the receiver. The hardest part? Finding the info on how to set up the receiver. After getting the components connected and aligned, it probably took me 3 hours to read all I could and learn all about the lnb/diseqc and the receiver. The receiver (viewsat 2000 platinum) came with a completely worthless setup guide. It's worth starting a nice winter fire but I wanted/needed tech specs which I had to find on the net and with a few quickly answered questions here in this forum! Thanks guys!
Overall, having not seen or touched a satellite antenna in over 7 years since I installed my DirecTV, which I tossed in the trash today, I think I did a pretty good job. Total time for installation, including digging, concrete, wiring, dish alignment and receiver setup took a total of 7 hours and most of that was spent waiting for the concrete to harden up.
Eric

Congrats on a job well done!!!!
Jeff

 

[mystjet]

Hi all,
Sorry I've been away from the board for a while. I've been busy with remodeling & upgrading the house (built in 1920, and wiring to prove it) So far I've gone through about a mile of RG-6 with multiple dual feeds per room, and close to that for the security/intercom system. I lost track of how much romex I've gone through.

Anyway, this board and the members up Thanks to Iceburg & the guys:up ) are a highly valuable source of encouragement & information. I probably would have figured out the logistics eventually, but they greatly reduced the learning curve. I won't say that my self-installation was uneventful, but it was vastly simpler with their help.

I was reading Iceburg's review on the Coolsat 5000, and am leaning towards purchasing one soon. I currenly use a Traxis 2500. It works well, but is a little cumbersome with programming, and satellite scans (no blind scan).

... Jim

 

[gizzer777]

here you pretty much have to anyway

I would say around 80% are self installs, 10% call a satellite installer. And the last 10% give up or give the system away.
This forum is here to help people set up their own systems!
We are here to Help!

There is only one company that I have known in Reno for years, that even have heard of FTA...say Satelliite, and the D* and D** guys are on the move!!! They helped me move my 8 ft C-Band dish since i did not have a big enough truck...it only moved 3 miles, so I did not want to take it apart!

jeff

 

[123tim]

I bought my system for the thrill of picking signals from a transmitter 22,000 miles in the air (or vacuum). When I was just out of high school I enjoyed DXing over the air TV broadcasts. I had a VHF/UHF antenna system with a homebrew downconverter running over about a half mile of rural telephone cable. I seem to be get the same thrill seeing that quality bar change color now as I did when I'd start to see a horizontal roll come out of the UHF snow on my black and white 12volt tv.
I bought a STAB motor, but really seem to enjoy moving the antenna around, pointing it manually. I have it mounted on a 2x4 base, which I lay two 40 pound sandbags on. The ground has been frozen and I haven't been able to put in a solid mast yet.
Like havenx and satseeker I wonder why I'd pay a fee to watch commercials. Like satseeker I think that my manual is worthless. I bought my system with the intention of learning from the manual. It let me down. This forum certainly didn't though.
For your poll, I never pay for any service I don't have to. I'm also a minimalist...We keep our house at 58 degrees in the winter, and however hot it happens to get in the summer. We've only had one to two TV channels over the past 12 years. I've also been sighted dragging TV's, Radios, Engines, and Computers out of dumpsters. I'm the personality type that does everything himself. (Quality may vary )



Thank you for the interesting question.

 

[Mr Tony]

I've installed all of my stuff. First dish I installed was a Dish500 at the lake and it took 4 hours in the heat and humidity of summer. Thats when I found out about a plumb pole

Installed 2 motorized units, a StarChoice dish, countless DBS dishes, 3 or 4 fixed dishes and helped out 6 or 7 members on this board with their FTA dishes
odd part....I dont use a meter...just the meter on the dish

and if I need a pro...I know where I can find one

 

[Stargazer]

I would guess that the majority would try to install themselves and have the wire run and everything and then if they cannot tune in the signal they will call an installer at that time to fine tune it for them. Some will come on sites like this to get help.

 

[N5XZS]

There are some poeple like me are disabled, can't install the FTA system by themself have to hire the pro dish installer.

Here in Albuquerque, New Mexico it's hard to find the installer is familer, with FTA system.

I found the installer is willing to learn from me, "I am a Ham radio, OPS" how to set the FTA dish set up right.

He's a mom and pop satellite business, called NM Satellite Man and he's a very good learner how to do FTA set up right, in the past he's install Directv and Dish and some DBS Canadian dish system.

His e-mail is nmsatelliteman@aol.com

Anyway this is a very good thread to have the information.

 

[Zero]

I feel a survey can be conducted to find the score. I did the installation on my own in TX and now moved to CA along with all equipments! Now I need to do it again this week once I move to Apt. It's really fun installing it.
I wouldn't have done it with out the help of this forum I bought the system and then started learning. I say it's worth the pain doing self installation.. few simple rules
1. Read, read, read this forum
2. Ask stupid questions : Sorry guys- I know you are patient and helpful
3. Ignore your wife's yellings

 

[drhydro]

I found setting up an FTA system to be fairly easy. I was able to set up my first winegard 76 cm dish in about 3 hours. The hardest part was figuring out how to set my elevation at 18 degrees on the dish, there was a bolt on the mount that was too long and was not allowing the dish to go that low. A quick trip to the hardware store took care of that. I found aiming that dish to g-10 fairly simple, first i found 121 then dropped elevation to 18 degrees and swung my dish over 1/8th of an inch.

Setting up my p* dish was even easier, that one took about an hour (the mount feet were already set up on my roof from the previous owner).

Installing my C-band dish took considerably longer than that, but technically was not much more difficult. The hardest part of that set up was digging the hole and setting up the pole / mount system that I use. Also getting a 10' dish up on a 8' high pole is not the easiest thing Aiming my BUD was not THAT hard, tho it did take a while to get the whole arc "peaked".

I think anyone with a modicum of technical knowledge and the physical capability to do so can install thier own systems if they really want to and have good reading skills/ comprehension. If they are afraid to pick up a drill, or the task of crimping on f connectors seems daunting to them, then they should have a professional install thier system.

 

[pappapump]

Well, I have to admit this has been more of an adventure than a hobby.
I had about 1 week of learning before I got all excited about FTA, then I just made the leap. Where im located the cable is kind of fuzzy and a lot of people just want basic channels on either dish or cable, Me included.
I don't like HBO, Cinemax, or any of that other stuff. I just want a pleasant channel or 2 to watch.
Well I got a lot more than that and feel that the time involved was and is worth it. I made a pole and foot system with my welder and some pipe I had laying around.
The pole went plumb the minuite i layed it on the driveway so the rest was easy.
Then I spent a week or so driving everybody here nuts with my questions till it all made sense and did my final adjustments and started getting signals.
I created an elevation adjuster and rotation screw to make adjustments a whole lot easier and will be including them with every system I eventually sell here.
At this point in time I have no desire to sell on the net, there are enough people here who already want a system. Besides I want to be very capable before I do installs, so I rip it all down and start over again just to make sure i can do it right.
Now I can practically eyeball everything in with or without a compass, then do minor adjustments with the rotation screw to lock on the TS.
The elevation adjuster uses the 2 bolts on the motor and a shoe on the pole while the rotater screw uses a plate which bolts on to the right or left side of the motor clamp plate. This keeps the whole mount from falling down as I adjust.
When I'm finished with it I plan to make a graph so you can see just how far you are rotating.

 

[starman345]

I install my satellite equipment and do some installs for others. I wonder if a lot of people buy the equipment, get frustrated with trying to install it, then get frustrated trying to find an installer and then re-sell it? I suspect that happens a lot. I see a lot of posts on different forums from people begging for help finding an installer for fta. There was one guy I think from Philiadelphia who tried for months to get an installer, the folks he called would say, "sure , we'll be right over to install that puppy", then when they see the motor, they quickly excuse themselves, they are only used to dss/dishnetwork setups. If its hard to find help in a big city like Phillie, imagine what its like in the boonies.
123Tim, you're not alone, I too am a do it yourselfer in most things. Sometimes it can be a curse as well as a blessing. I was building vhf/uhf tv antennas out of 300 ohm twin lead back in the '60s, carrying the contraptions around the house trying to find a "sweet spot" for reception.
Nowadays, blind scan is the dx'ers dream..at least for me. Can't imagine how I ever got along without it!

 

[hubba]

i set mine up and my buddies. in had a great time, my wife might not think so. we did get some good channels for a while, but they move and change. i love messing with it when i can.

 

[Zero]

Thought I will update this again.. I did it again for 2nd time, once in TX now in CA. It took 15 minutes to assemble and hook up the wires.. 5 minutes to aim and peak the dish for IA5 (fixed dish). I was up and running in 20 minutes flat.. I did n't hear any murmer from wife too.