F sum trees, I REFUSE TO GET CABLE - HELP

[miston]

I just bought my first house, it is perfect EXCEPT for the lack of storage AND all of the trees not giving me a clear line of sight. Dish Network & DirecTV both said the trees were blocking.

SO I am thinking the only slight chance I would have to avoid paying Comcast, would be to convince some of my neighbors that might have a clear line of sight to allow me to install a dish on a lot a few hundred feet away.

Is this possible?
Theoretically how long can the cable run be?
What equipment would I need?
Costs?

ANY HELP HIGHLY APPRECIATED!

[harsh]

The maximum practical distance is likely something less than 150' with RG6. Larger cables may not give you the frequency range required for DIRECTV.

I'd suggest you prepare for the worst.

[qcsatguy]

Check out amps at sonoradesign.com they have worked for me in the past (300+ ft)

[leprechaunshawn]

Hire a Night Beaver. That'll take care of the trees.

[joe diamond]

You are screwed unless you want to consider antenna towers or tree cutting.

F sum?......my kid talks like that. Engineering school does that to ya.

Joe

[joe diamond]

Check out amps at sonoradesign.com they have worked for me in the past (300+ ft)

There is the neighbor property thing & the power source thing and the trench thing. But....could work.

Joe

[tkrandall]

I just bought my first house, it is perfect EXCEPT for the lack of storage AND all of the trees not giving me a clear line of sight. Dish Network & DirecTV both said the trees were blocking.

SO I am thinking the only slight chance I would have to avoid paying Comcast, would be to convince some of my neighbors that might have a clear line of sight to allow me to install a dish on a lot a few hundred feet away.

Is this possible?
Theoretically how long can the cable run be?
What equipment would I need?
Costs?

ANY HELP HIGHLY APPRECIATED!

Dish's Eastern Arc won't work either (i.e you are blocked by trees from both the SE and SW?)

[miston]

I'm pretty much blocked by trees 360 degrees

So around 300' is my working distance?

[hilmar2k]

I'm pretty much blocked by trees 360 degrees


And you still bought the house? ;)

[spartanstew]

And you still bought the house? ;)

You wink, but that would have been a deal breaker for me (among many others). I'm pretty particular about what I want when buying a house and will look for as long as it takes to find the perfect one (no LOS and not enough storage would have meant it wasn't perfect for me).

[BattleScott]

http://www.dbstalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=20946&stc=1&d=1263575925
:)

[joe diamond]

http://www.dbstalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=20946&stc=1&d=1263575925
:)

It is at this point I often mention the shotgun cure.
IF you are way the hell out in the boonies it is possible to trim small limbs with shotguns. Slugs and BB work best...buckshot if you can get it.

Joe

[phlevin]

I just bought my first house, it is perfect EXCEPT for the lack of storage AND all of the trees not giving me a clear line of sight. Dish Network & DirecTV both said the trees were blocking.

SO I am thinking the only slight chance I would have to avoid paying Comcast, would be to convince some of my neighbors that might have a clear line of sight to allow me to install a dish on a lot a few hundred feet away.

Is this possible?
Theoretically how long can the cable run be?
What equipment would I need?
Costs?

ANY HELP HIGHLY APPRECIATED!

Have you made your own calculations that you are indeed blocked?
Plenty of stories of misdiagnosis.

[hilmar2k]

http://www.dishpointer.com/

[webby_s]

I am not in the same "dilemma" but I am moving next week also and am doing the installation myself. Here is my suggestion: Look into it all yourself, check http://www.dishpointer.com/ out. Can you put it on your roof with the trees farthest away? Do you get what I mean.

I will be trying to put it in one spot and if there is a tree in the way.. I will have to go to the second floor away from the tree and closer to the front of the house.

Just give us more info on your layout and I bet there will be someone here that will help you out a lot and hopefully, for your sake, get you Direct.

[evan_s]

Another odd possibility. Can you go under the trees on your property? EG mount it close to the ground near the road and get it under the branches on your property and clear the trees across the road/down the street?

[merlin50]

They told me the same thing but when I used the tips on this site for optimum dish placement I had no problem telling them where to put the dish. Also promising a tip will make them more aggressive in finding a spot. They don't get paid extra for a difficult install so sometimes they just pass on ones that need to be on the roof.

[2dogz]

Trees are trees and you may be SOL.

But, nowadays, an install can be done with a 3 LNB dish for 99/101/103 sats unlike olden days that also required you to see 110/119 sats. Most subs that require 119, the toughest sat to see because it's the lowest on the horizon, only do so to get SD locals. If you have HD locals you don't need 119, but even if you don't, you still can say to heck with 119 and set up an antenna for OTA locals.

The point is that you can point the dish over closer and/or taller trees today than you could in the past. There's always hope.

[tcusta00]

Unless you're truly in dense woods there may be a way... it may cost you but there may be a way. I paid $200 for my pole mount 150ft from the house and it took going to a local independent installer to get it done, but it got done. Previously I had 4 DirecTV contractors tell me there was no way.

[jdspencer]

Any chance you can get a LOS at the NE side of your property? This might give you a SW shot over the trees. Then there's the tower solution as mentioned earlier. And the dishpointer website is great.

[litzdog911]

Can you post some photos?
Are you sure there are no "holes" in the trees? You only need a narrow open window to hit the 99/101/103º satellites.

[inkahauts]

I would like to see some photos as well...

And hey, where there is a will, there is a way...

http://www.solidsignal.com/cview.asp?mc=05&d=commercial-equipment&c=Antenna%20Towers

And sepcifically

http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?mc=05&p=100-AME25-BT-GUY&d=American-Tower-Amerite-25-AME25-100-Foot-Commercial-Tower-with-3-Foot-Base-Section--Guyed-Wire-(100AME25BTGUY)&c=Antenna%20Towers&sku=

for those really high trees.... :D

[stilen621]

Cordless Sawzall with a rough cut blade on it. Just make sure to use camo paint.

[hilmar2k]

I would like to see some photos as well...

And hey, where there is a will, there is a way...

http://www.solidsignal.com/cview.asp?mc=05&d=commercial-equipment&c=Antenna%20Towers

And sepcifically

http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp?mc=05&p=100-AME25-BT-GUY&d=American-Tower-Amerite-25-AME25-100-Foot-Commercial-Tower-with-3-Foot-Base-Section--Guyed-Wire-(100AME25BTGUY)&c=Antenna%20Towers&sku=

for those really high trees.... :D

Yeah, a will and $4k. :)

[AntAltMike]

...So around 300' is my working distance?

A Sonora inline amp compensates for about 150' of signal loss. Your loss equation starts with a dish output of about -31dBm, and incorporates about 8dB of loss per 100 feet of RG-6 coax. Our industry (meaning, the amplifier manufacturers) recommends designing a system to deliver a signal strength of -55dBm to each receiver. You could attain that with one single receiver on a 300' coax. Going through a two-way splitter at 1.8GHz might incur close to another 5dB of signal loss.

Sonora makes a "drop in", line powered amplifier (141R) that boosts the signal by 14dB, permitting you to incur the loss of another 150 feet of coax, but if you try cascading them at 150' intervals, you may wind up dropping the line DC voltage to the LNB to below its minimum operating level.