Ok so you have bought your Dream box, hummy technomate or a Lidll offer,youve bought cams and proggers and trawled the net. Whatever your start point never mind you have joined a great hobby.
Itching to get the dish up and start to watch whats on free to air or whatever, but the question is how well is your primary kit installed??
many threads include problems resulting from bad installs.
Following information is related to my experience of the mechanics of a good equipment installation.
1/. get yourself a big roll of self amalgamating tape it has 1000 uses beyond satellite and worth every penny, it needs stretching to twice its length to get a sealing bond eg a 2 inch piece stretched to around 4 inches when applied to connections will shrink back and bond to and absolute water tight bond. I have seen the stuff applied like pvc electrical tape that is the incorrect method. Try to tape joints to LNBs before final fixing to the dish it is easier to see what you are doing and more manouverable.
2/. Soak
all the nuts bolts and any fixings in a container of thickwax based rust prevention fluid (car rust preventer wax - Waxo*l). when you come to remove bolts and screws in years to come you will thank yourself you took the trouble. Especially when trying to free rusted bolts when at the top of a long ladder.
3/. Use rawl bolts (not plastic plug types) on dish installs (especially big dishes) and drill into the brick well away from edges of the brickwork structure, cranking in rawl bolts can crack the structue and dont be tempted to take the easy option of going in at the cement joint, a big dish takes a hell of a battering in wind and depending on support pole size etc they will break away and can rip brickwork etc to bits. If you dont believe me - stand with a large piece of board facing a strong wind and see the effect. Get good brackets and a strong pole. U bolts when tightened will nip alluminium broom handle (god forbid) and will eventually be the fail collapse point of your install (remember your kids playing underneath something which could come down at a hell of a pace)
4/. Plan the route of your cables - as short a run as possible, no kinks only smooth curves and preferably no or few joints between
lnb and receiver. I prefer to get Disecq switches as near to the dish end as possible. Best cable is solid foam covered centre core with copper insulation and copper solid cover. The only problem with the very heavy top end cable types is that they can put strain on connections at the recever end. a bit of care and a good curve and length on the cable should end up with no problems.
5/. Use the best cable you can afford or get some off your S*Y tv mate, also get the correct sized F connectors, yes they are designed to fit different thicknesses of cable, take a bit of your cable to (ma**ins) and try some before buying.
6/. When fitting F connectors (lots of threads re how cut and trim etc) but in addition nip them tight with a small correct sized spanner, no dont crank them on. This will stop them backing off over time. Add your self amalgamating tape from the
Lnb / disecq threads down onto the F nut and continue well on to the cable. If you go in the direction of thread rotation this can help stop the cable unwinding out of the F connector and possibly preventing signal problems.
7/. Cable clips will deteriorate in sun shine, I use the plastic metal covered type designed to hold mineral insulated fire alarm cable (orange or red stuff) bend them around a dowel or thick pencil rather than trying to get the best fit direct on the cable - you will get the jist if you decide to take the trouble and use them, they only need a small screw (waxoiled) into brickwork to mak a lasting hold. Plastc clips will also break, go in on the wonk or nip the cable when belted into brickwork with a hammer. also belting your expensive cable in the process can flatten / damage it etc. If you must use plastic type buy the best size or even ones just a little bit larger than the cable (not the ones that might just do) and take your time.
8/. Cable ties will deteriorate over time in sunlight - use self amalgamating tape it causes no nip up damage on the cable and is I believe is a better solution.
When your metal ware /hard ware is fixed brush the lot (not
LNB and electrics) with waxoil including wiping it over the metal dish (my mitre dish has been out for 12 years plus with no sign of rust at all, the other day I had to do a slight adjustment and every bolt moved easily.
9/. Add different colour tapes to distinguish several cables eg at the
Lnb end and the receiver end - it makes life easy when doing any checks in the future. I label all cables at the house end and on entry into distribution units etc with a label type label maker. carefully brush waxoil on to the screw / tightenings of your lnbs - no I didnt say splash it all over the thing.
If the end cap of an
LNB cracks in sunlight a workable replacement is a plastic coffee jar top (find the nearest fit in the bin) take the old plastic one off, wrap a suitable turn of amalgamating tape around the end (a bit of trial and error) and push the jar top on to a tight fit and then wind tape around the joint in amalgamating tape to make it water tight - it does work - I did a temporary repair which ended up lasting years.
10. If you have several plugs to different receivers in the same electric sockets or extension block mark them with the receiver name, it makes distinguishing easier when isolating a receiver eg for
LNB maintenance - removing an
LNB from the non disconnected live receiver is likely to cause a fuse blow in the receiver.
11/. You may not enjoy housework but dusting your receivers with a damp (not wet) cloth will help stop shit from getting into your kit. Do not use silicon type sprays any where near your kit - warning if you have a keen cleaning housemate.
12/. We could talk for days about cooling receivers with fans etc (may be another thread) but an easy way to improve air flow in stacked kit is to cut 4 small blocks of wood or plastic and stick them with double sided tape under each unit, when they are stacked you can increase the air flow quite well. Just dont cover any air vents with your blocks or spacers. Latent heat will cause a large amount of fail problems in any delicate equipment.
And as a last thought i am not sure of the science fact but does white cable reflect ultraviolet sunlight out side better than black?? - cable does break down in time especially in full sunlight.
I am sure some may say OTT and others may have thier own methods to add. I can say that I have never had problems caused by bad installation. If done badly poor installation will cause often difficult to trace problems and heartache and lots of FFFFS when you need to do maintenance in the future.
Now enjoy the hobby and dont fall off the ladder, the NHS dont need any more business.
BITG