Phoenix area installer recommendations?

[Ziploc]

I'm moving soon and normally I'm a do-it yourself guy, but I have my limitations. My new home is two story and I do not think I am capable of mounting a 100cm dish and lnb and aiming it appropriately on my second story roofline. Besides the HOA is likely to require I use a professional installer anyways. I suppose I could cold call a bunch of places in the yellow pages but nowadays that rarely gets you a professional job, recommendations for good service from those in the know such as the people here are important.

I live in the Phoenix area, more specifically I will be moving to the Queen Creek/Johnson Ranch area. I need a reputable and fair priced installer to help me mount and aim my dish and cable through into my attic to the distribution box pretty near-by on the second floor.

Can anyone PM me any recommendations? What is a reasonable price to pay for mounting/aiming?

I've not purchased my parts yet either, perhaps it could be part of a package deal for the whole install as long as prices are similar to PSB and Sadouns, where I'd certainly buy if I was doing it all myself.

I want to mount a 100cm to the roofline and reuse my sg2100 motor so I'll need:
a mount, a 100cm dish, an invacom QPH-031, oh I'll also need a new diseqc switch since the painters lost my current switch when dismantling my current setup from the roof.

Thanks All!

Z

p.s. If this request is a no-no due to forum rules about advertising please delete/modify it accordingly thx!

 

[PSB]

Come on Ziploc! You are responsable for one of THE best threads here at the SatelliteGuys.US FTA forum!

The one where you converted a P* dish to work with the SG2100 motor!

(http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=23072&highlight=Primestar+sg2100)

If ANYONE can do themself it should be you

 

[Ziploc]

I've not visited the attic in the new house yet, technically I do not own it yet papers still in the works and construction is not 100% yet.

Danger aside the roofline on the new house is 30-40 feet up I don't have a clue how to get up there to mount things! Do you rent scaffolding or a lift of some sort? There is no access to the back yard except a standard small gate in the side yard, block fence all around. I'm not against doing it myself if I can find a good safe way. The property is not big enough for a ground mount and a pole mount seems unlikely also. I've been mulling this over for some time now, just don't see a reasonable way for me to do it.

attached a couple photos of the back of the house I'm looking almost due south in the first photo.

I figure I need to do my FTA dish as close to the peak as possible to see the arc without the roof blocking some, as far as I know there are no structures protruding from the roof on either side of the peak looking towards the front.

 

[drhydro]

In that case I would rent a "cherry picker" for a day, or rent scaffolding, OR buy a real good fiberglass extension ladder. Any of those is going to be cheaper than to pay a "pro" installer who probably knows much less about our hobby (and equipment) than you do. As for the danger part, use a safety harness, just dont secure the rope on the other side to your SO's car, you could become a darwin award candidate ;-)

 

[PSB]

I see what you mean, its a non standard install to say the least! I am very comfortable with heights so for me hiring a ladder would take care of the height issue, but I have no experience with tiled roofs. I always try to keep dish as low as they can go.

What about a pole mount, located down by the wall behind the A/C
It could be reinforced as it would have to be high enough for the dish to see over the wall! There should be virtually no difference in line of sight between ground level and apex of a roof when you are pointing at satellites so high in the sky!

Pity the house was not the other way round as that small roof would be IDEAL for a simple non-pen flat roof mount!

 

[drhydro]

Having seen your house I understand your concerns. I see a possible problem wth an non penetrating mount, as the "rocking" action of the mount (caused by wind) on a tile roof could damage tiles. This is a small appleid force, but could cause a problem.

You could do an eve mount on the front of the house, BUT you will have to heavily reinforce the area the mount is placed.

I would do a pole mount on the back of the house, with the pole mounted to the back wall, and the dish looking up over the roof towards the front. I have seen BUDS mounted this way, so I am sure you can do it
for your 100 cm dish.

 

[Shawn95GT]

FWIW, my house is situated on the lot exactly like yours is and is also two story.

I did a pole mount against the north wall of my property. I put the pole about half way between the centerline of the lot and the West wall to allow for LOS to the East. Judging by your pics, you should have room to shoot over your house.

The downside to this install is the l-o-n-g cable run between the dish and the cable box. I say downside because 'as short as possible' is generally the rule of thumb. Mine works fine with a 200' or so run of cable (along the fence and around to the East side of my house where the cable box is).

As an added bonus, unless you have a view fence the HOA will never know about it .

Pics from my place:

Pic of the dish is from my Patio, facing NorthWest. I was able to get down to PAS9 (58w) with that setup.

 

[Ziploc]

I appreciate all the ideas and encouragement!

Maybe I can do a re-inforced eve mount 2/3rds of the way up using a ladder from the covered patio. The house isn't true north/south oriented I think it faces between ten to fifteen degrees west of true north/south. I'd like to get as high as is reasonable my current install has been plagued with trees growing up into my line of sight. Though this is a new build and a new neighborhood you never can tell how long it will be until the neighbors palm tree grows up blocking your favorite satellite.

I also like the idea of having the dish low down on a pole at the back of the yard so I can tweak and poke at the alignment, though I think I may not be able to get good sight/signal due to limited lot size. I can probably use my existing primestar on my test pole/mockup to see if a ground installation is actually a workable solution.

I'd be willing to bet that dish/dtv would mount a dish on the eve at the east side of the house. I'll have to do some driving through the area and see if anyone else has dish's up already. Just so happens that the laundry room with the distro box is located on the second floor about 15-20 feet from the back corner on that east wall. making cable runs from that side very short.

Is there a website out there with a diagram or a known method to calulate how tall a pole I might need to have a clear view over the house? It really is just some angles and distances, maybe I can draw something up to help me picture and determine if a groundpole will work.

 

[mikekohl]

Are you certain that you need to be up at roof level to achieve reception at your house in Phoenix? Typical elevation angles are between 30 and 50 degrees, so unless something is blocking you to the southeast, I would think that a pole cemented into the ground would work in most locations.

With that concept in mind, you could go to a steel yard (or even a scrapyard) and get a full 20 or 21 foot length of steel pipe (3 or 3-1/2 inch outside diameter),
and cement at least four feet into the ground with a pillar mount. Before cementing, get a 1-foot length of the OD pipe that you will be using on your motor drive mount, and weld to a transition to the larger pipe. A free standing pole could be 10-12 feet off the ground; relatively accessable with a tall stepladder, but above all local objects.

If you MUST go to the roof to clear obstructions, use the same technique, and cement a full length of pipe into the ground about the same depth. Using gradually smaller diameter lengths, weld several transitions down to the size of pipe that you really need, leaving about one foot sticking out of the top.
Pipe is generally in 1/2 inch increments, so 3 or 4 2-foot pieces of each smaller diameter should fit into each succeeding pipe like a glove. Weld them into place.
Now for the tip of the week: Let's assume you need a 2-inch OD mast for the motor. Get a 6-inch length of 2-inch inside diameter pipe, and confirm that it slides over the smallest diameter pipe easily. Drill a pair of 1/2 or 5/8 inch holes into it...or have a welder torch holes of this diameter, and weld a machine nut
for that size bolt (1/2 or 5/8 inch) over each hole. Appropriate machine bolts
will be installed after you have finished the next step, and painted the metal.

Near the peak of your roof, measure horizontally how far it would be to span between either side. Weld a piece of flat bar of that length to your above
"clamp" with the two machine bolts, centered on either side. Drill at least
3/8 inch holes near the ends of the flat bar. These will anchor your "tower"
to the side of the peak. The trick is to dig a hole below. centered on the
middle of the pipe, which is leveled for vertical in that hole (4 feet deep)
and cemented into place.

A crazy contraption, but something I used to do out of necessity in Alaska, where the highest elevations at south barely touched 20 degrees, and rooftop mounts were usually the only way to get a few satellites.

 

[PSB]

Is there a website out there with a diagram or a known method to calulate how tall a pole I might need to have a clear view over the house? It really is just some angles and distances, maybe I can draw something up to help me picture and determine if a groundpole will work.

Here is a good elevation of obstacle calculator (And much more)

http://www.satellite-calculations.com/

Works for feet or meters!

 

[Ziploc]

I don't think I could do a full height pole at the back of the house due to the HOA. So it's an eve mount or a low to the ground pole that can hide behind the fence. I'm leaning heavily towards a pole at the rear, I could then probably even plan to do a a four foot dish at some point and do c-band mini-bud perhaps. it's 45 feet between the fence and back of the house, so I guess it's a wait and see situation on whether I can use a ground pole at the rear of the lot.

 

[Wildeye]

If its not an issue with line of sight I would put it on the porch roof. You could make a pole long enough and just mount it in the corner too.