Under Deck Mounting Bracket?

[TalonDancer]

Our house is built into a slope with the entrance and the living space at the upper level and a “basement” below. The south facing deck, at the living level, is cantilevered over the slope into the creek. The edge of the deck is 12ft up from ground level. The roof is metal and the ground is limestone. So both a roof mount and pole mount are undesirable.

We would like to mount the dish just UNDER the south edge of the deck where it would only be visible from down in the creek. Is there an “under deck” mounting bracket similar to the J shaped eave mount but with the bracket on the long end?



Thanks in Advance

 

[bigjohnok]

I got a work around take a j mount mount it upside down with the long part sticking down.

take the dish backing and take a pair of pliers and bend that little tad that grips the edge of a mast or pole mount flush and install the dish going up on the j mount. might want to install a u bolt under the dish backing after its installed so that if the mast bolts every come lose that dish doesn't fall and hit the ground.

another thing I just thought of depending on tilt of dish you might have to mount the j mount tilted to accommodate tilt of dish.

Btw I grew up on a working ranch in southeast OK I have a phd in southern engineering.

 

[harshness]

Btw I grew up on a working ranch in southeast OK I have a phd in southern engineering.

Is there an appreciable difference between "redneck engineering" and "southern engineering" or is it just a politically correct designation?

 

[bigjohnok]

Is there an appreciable difference between "redneck engineering" and "southern engineering" or is it just a politically correct designation?

its actually called something else in these parts but you cant use that word anymore in a public setting.

 

[harshness]

So you want to mount it to the side of a joist? I can see where getting the business end to stay plum could be a real problem. The problem with the J-mounts is that the plate is usually welded to the hook end.

Another under-eave mount features a mounting plate to screw the mounting base to but that's not going to give you a whole lot more leveling freedom or torsional rigidity either.

There is a device known as a "rafter mount" that spans two rafters/joists that takes much of the fun out of mounting situations like that that can be had for under $40:

http://www.summitsource.com/directv...rge-antenna-uhfvhffm-part-slearo-p-10665.html

 

[bigjohnok]

So you want to mount it to the side of a joist? I can see where getting the business end to stay plum could be a real problem. The problem with the J-mounts is that the plate is usually welded to the hook end.

Another under-eave mount features a mounting plate to screw the mounting base to but that's not going to give you a whole lot more leveling freedom or torsional rigidity either.

There is a device known as a "rafter mount" that spans two rafters/joists that takes much of the fun out of mounting situations like that that can be had for under $40:

http://www.summitsource.com/directv...rge-antenna-uhfvhffm-part-slearo-p-10665.html

or he/she could build one out of pressure treated timber/lumber if they are handy with tools for way less than that.

 

[TalonDancer]

Thanks bigjohnok and harshness for your ideas.

I’m pretty handy with tools and willing to do a little “engineering” to get the dish mounted below the deck. But I’d still like the final solution to look nice

I was hoping there was an existing bracket/mount that could do the job. If not, I may have to make one. My shop is sorely lacking a pipe bender and a welder.

 

[bigjohnok]

Thanks bigjohnok and harshness for your ideas.

I’m pretty handy with tools and willing to do a little “engineering” to get the dish mounted below the deck. But I’d still like the final solution to look nice

I was hoping there was an existing bracket/mount that could do the job. If not, I may have to make one. My shop is sorely lacking a pipe bender and a welder.

Quality of workmanship is all on the craftsmen
I would go with making something out of some nice pressure treated lumber, working with wood is a whole lot forgiving and easier than working with metal. Then mounting a normal mast to it.

my idea of something that could work for you.
its a rough plan drawn on paint not going to get all fancy but you get the idea

 

[harshness]

I was hoping there was an existing bracket/mount that could do the job. If not, I may have to make one. My shop is sorely lacking a pipe bender and a welder.

We've talked about three commercially available products. If they don't appeal to you visually, maybe you can box an ugly one in.

I'm not a big fan of using wood for the mount proper as it often warps (even the PT lumber).

 

[TalonDancer]

We've talked about three commercially available products. If they don't appeal to you visually, maybe you can box an ugly one in....

It’s not so much the visual appeal of the mount itself. It’s that we don’t want to look at the back of a satellite dish every time we look out the window. All of the eave and rafter brackets I’ve seen in Google image searches place the dish ABOVE the mounting bracket, hence above the deck level and in plain view from the house.

bigjohnok’s idea of hanging the available J style under eave mount upside down might work fine, if I understood how to modify it to accommodate the dish on the shorter leg of the J. Having never seen one. I’m concerned that it might be difficult to remove what I assume is a welded on mounting plate without damaging the short end of the J. But maybe the short end is long enough to just cut off the pipe below the bracket. I’m not too worried about rigidity. The outer frame of the deck is a W8 13 steel I beam. Any pole style bracket could be mounted up against it. And I have the necessary tools/materials to block the deck joists to keep them plump, etc. In other words if this style mount works with the long end up, it should work the other way around.

Our existing setup includes a Dish 1000.2 (110, 119 & 129) and Dish 500 (single LNB) pointed at 61.5 for when our locals were only over there. I’m pretty sure we no longer need the 61.5. So I plan to take it down and look at the brackets etc. to see how they attach to the pipe and how much they can be modified.

 

[harshness]

bigjohnok’s idea of hanging the available J style under eave mount upside down might work fine, if I understood how to modify it to accommodate the dish on the shorter leg of the J.

As I pointed out, the bracketry is usually welded to the wrong end on the J-style mounts.

I’m not too worried about rigidity. The outer frame of the deck is a W8 13 steel I beam. Any pole style bracket could be mounted up against it.

Your picture showed the proposed mount being screwed to the side of a joist. I'm assuming that your wide flange is mounted with the flanges horizontal and the web vertical (such that it won't hold much water). Maybe you could bolt a conventional mount into the web of the beam? There's just about 7-1/2" inches in there between the flanges.

 

[TalonDancer]

...Maybe you could bolt a conventional mount into the web of the beam? There's just about 7-1/2" inches in there between the flanges.

Yes there is room to bolt a standard mast bracket directly to the web of a W8 13 I beam. The result would be much like a wall mount. The problem is that the standard mast then extends outward (good) but also upward above the deck level. The resulting dish position would be above the level of the deck which we are trying to avoid.

The fundamental problem is that the bracket on the dish itself assumes that the top of the mast will be below the bracket. This allows the dish to be tilted back so that the upper part of the dish can be over the top of the mast. At southern latitudes the inclination, hence tilt, can be significant. In my case the inclination is roughly 50 degrees. Of course the tilt is less than 50 degrees because of how the LNBs are positioned. But the tilt of the dish still places much of it over the top of the mast.

 

[boba]

Hang a weather proof 2x8 below the "I" beam and mount the dish below the I beam on the 2x8.

 

[harshness]

The fundamental problem is that the bracket on the dish itself assumes that the top of the mast will be below the bracket. This allows the dish to be tilted back so that the upper part of the dish can be over the top of the mast. At southern latitudes the inclination, hence tilt, can be significant. In my case the inclination is roughly 50 degrees.

It is important not to reinvent vocabulary. In the satellite dish business, this inclination that you speak of is known as "elevation". "Tilt" is a term used by DIRECTV ("skew" is the corresponding DISH term) to signify the orientation of the line through the feed horns that needs to be parallel to the line through the satellites in the Clarke Belt.

If the wide flange (not I-beam as you are calling it) is exposed, perhaps you could bolt a short peice of angle (8"x8", 8"x6" or 8"x4" depending on any additional protrusion you need) to the bottom flange.

Using pieces of lumber may be okay in parched climates but anywhere else it will run the risk of warpage.

 

[TalonDancer]

....If the wide flange (not I-beam as you are calling it) is exposed, perhaps you could bolt a short peice of angle (8"x8", 8"x6" or 8"x4" depending on any additional protrusion you need) to the bottom flange.....

Perhaps you could provide a rough drawing of how these additional short pieces of angle will allow attaching a dish to a deck and keep the top of the dish BELOW the level of the deck.

FWIW the term “wide flange” is just another name for what is commonly called a steel I-Beam, as in “Steel Wide Flange I-Beams” http://www.efunda.com/math/areas/rolledsteelbeamsw.cfm . A W8 13 has a depth of 8 inches, a width of 4 inches and a weight of 13 lbs per foot. Much of our house and all of our deck is supported by these W8 13 steel wide flange I beams. And they are all exposed.

But the details of how any mast is attached to the deck joists or the steel is not the issue. The issue is that the bracket attached to the dish itself is designed to be mounted at the top of any mast. So any bracket/mast that keeps the dish below the deck level needs to be shaped something like the one in my original post.

 

[boba]

Perhaps you could provide a rough drawing of how these additional short pieces of angle will allow attaching a dish to a deck and keep the top of the dish BELOW the level of the deck.

FWIW the term “wide flange” is just another name for what is commonly called a steel I-Beam, as in “Steel Wide Flange I-Beams” http://www.efunda.com/math/areas/rolledsteelbeamsw.cfm . A W8 13 has a depth of 8 inches, a width of 4 inches and a weight of 13 lbs per foot. Much of our house and all of our deck is supported by these W8 13 steel wide flange I beams. And they are all exposed.

But the details of how any mast is attached to the deck joists or the steel is not the issue. The issue is that the bracket attached to the dish itself is designed to be mounted at the top of any mast. So any bracket/mast that keeps the dish below the deck level needs to be shaped something like the one in my original post.

Go for it if you can get the illustrated bracket. Or have one custom fabricated (maybe a muffler shop).

 

[harshness]

I'd probably hang a piece of channel from the wide flange with the dish mounting foot hole pattern pre-drilled. If you want to be able to easily remove it, cap the end of the channel and bolt it to the bottom flange.

A simpler solution might be to mount the dish to a deck support leg if LOS permits.

Unless you're using transparent plastic or glass for the balusters, I'm not sure you'd really notice the dish anyway.

 

[the mack]

You could always mount the dish upside down. I have seen it work.