Save me from Comcast; how tall can a dish mast be?

[ksb]

I just moved to a new house and tall trees are blocking a clear shot of 110. (The DishMover guy said that I had a clear shot of 119, but hat 110 was iffy over the trees.)

<RANT ON>I had Comcast out yesterday. They couldn't get the digital channels to work. I changed digital boxes this morning and they couldn't get that one to work. They brought a third receiver this afternoon and that one still doesn't work. (They suggested waiting for two hours to see if it "fixes itself.") So, in 24 hours of cable service, I've had greater cumulative outage time than I had with Dish in over two years. Plus, the Motorola hardware is dreadfully slow in changing channels.</RANT OFF>

OK, I want to try getting Dish here again. How tall a mast can I erect before wind becomes a problem with aim? I think that by positioning the dish at one corner of the property, I might be able to get a clear shot of 110. (I may also be able to see 61.5.)

Please help save me from Comcast!

--Ken

[Richard King]

Well, I have installed a 10' c-band dish on top of a 50'+ tall pole with no problems. The pole was a schedule 80 3 1/2" OD and was braced 3 times against the house on the way up. If you brace the pole against the house you mount it on you should be able to go several feet above the roof line of the house. As for an upper limit, I really don't know what to say, but with a heavy enough pole I don't see why you couldn't do at least 10' or so.

[navy8ball]

i walk by this house everyday and he has a dish mounted at least 15 feet above his roof using a modified tripod that fits over the peak of the roof.

[AntAltMike]

Well, I have installed a 10' c-band dish on top of a 50'+ tall pole with no problems. The pole was a schedule 80 3 1/2" OD and was braced 3 times against the house on the way up. If you brace the pole against the house you mount it on you should be able to go several feet above the roof line of the house. As for an upper limit, I really don't know what to say, but with a heavy enough pole I don't see why you couldn't do at least 10' or so.

It is important that you not misinterpret that post. Rking401 does not have a 50 foot giant metal sunflower in his yard. I will be surprised if his antenna is more than ten feet above his highest wall attachment.

I once saw a house in which someone extended a wallmounted 3.5", schedule 40 mast over fifteen feet above the highest wall attachment point to support a 7.5 foot, C-band dish. It looked silly. And they guy-wired it on just two of the three 120 degree axis away from the side of the house. Which meant that any time the wind gusted in the direction of the middle of the two guy wires, the dish would snap back, but only to vertical, and then the side of the house would go blam like it had been run into by a rinocerous.

As I said in your similar thread in another forum, raising a dish to avoid trees rarely helps and is defeated by next year's tree growth, but moving the dish BACK from the trees often gets you a lot more room to accomodate future tree growth.

[Mike500]

As a professional installer, I've encountered a situation, where the Homeowner's Association imposed the 12 ft. above the roof limit for an OTA antenna on the dish.

[apc1]

Are you absolutely sold on Dish or will Directv do? If you'd like to contact me, I am an installer in the Philly area and would be glad to see what I can do for you. If this interests you, email me at eric@allphase.tv

[ksb]

Comcast was a no-show today and they can't give me a better than 9-5 window for Sunday.

On the bright side, with information from this and another forum, I think that I can get Dish again. The keys are to consider installations on the ground (instead of just considering the roof of the house) and trying multiple locations instead of just one (for 61.5, 110, and 119). My new Dish Mover visit isn't scheduled until July 26, but at this point I'm willing to contact an installer and pay to get it done sooner so that I can be rid of Comcast sooner.

:soapbox: How does a company with such a large customer service organization and an inherent technical advantage over satellite (wired as opposed to wireless) manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory so many times as Comcast does? Maybe Charlie picked the DBS business not because of its business or technical superiority, but because he knew that he'd be competing against the likes of Comcast and other such businesses with a history of poor service execution. Maybe customer service at Dish and DirecTV aren't good on an absolute basis, but only when compared to the incredibly awful service generally given by the incumbent cable firms.

[ksb]

IT's FIXED!!! Today's tech checked the signal strength and found it to be good. He tried a few things with folks at "dispatch" -- none of that worked. Finally, he got someone at the head end to reinitialize the box and everything is working.

Fixing this took being home for five straight days, four tech visits (not counting the one who blew us off on Saturday), and three HD cable boxes. Now I understand why Comcast charges so much -- it's to pay for all of the fruitless visits to customer homes.

[ksb]

I AM BACK!!!

Dish was here again today. Unlike the installer who came ten days ago, this guy looked at my property and said that there'd be no problem doing ancel by 8-day old account and return the equipment. I am a happy camper.

Thank you all for your suggestions and support. Although I didn't have to resort to any of the ideas put forth here, thea roof install.

He mounted two dishes (61.5 and 110/119) to the same corner of the roof, put in an SW64, and installed runs to the three receivers. Everything is working perfectly.

I've already called Comcast to c options presented encouraged me to call Dish to reschedule the DishMover visit.

Again, thank you all. --Ken