A question for you installers out there.

[pete424]

I live in Andover KS and I have 2 reciever (a 622 and a 625) and 4 tvs. Only one of which is high def. I have had my Dish network service since early February. From the very beginning I had a problem with my hi def channels pixelating and then losing the signal. Dish would send guys from a local installer out and they would "peak" the dish. After four visits, I was almost at the point of giving up. My dish, a 1000 was installed on my house when I bought it and they left it in the same place. No one thought there was any problem with obstacles. On this past Saturday another guy came out and he could see the problem and he messed around on the roof, then he replaced my 622 (making this the 3rd one I have had) and still could not get a decent signal on 129. After 4 hours of going up and down the ladder and not gaining anything he called his supervisor who decided he would come out with a new 1000.2 dish. By the time he got here it was near dark and I was beginning to lose patience. The two of them are up on the roof and the supervisor comes down and tells me it was a problem with my old dish and he has the new one "dialed in at 100%" on all three sats and he leaves. I go out in my back yard and this is what I find. They moved my dish about 15' and ran the cable down the roof the the gutter and then to a block type thing. My tv is working much better but I am not real happy with the way this looks. Is this an appropriate install or am I being overly critical?

pete424

 

[webbydude]

IMO they could've ran the coax cable a bit straighter (perpendicular to the gutter while going down the roof); otherwise it's appropriate and legit for an install. In their (the installers) defense, it was dark. I'm not sure if that's the answer you're looking for.

 

[Dgenx321]

So he ran it into a ground block in the gutter?

 

[RandallA]

I agree with Webby, the cables could be a little more straight but other than that that's how I ran my cables one side of the house. For me there's nothing to attach the cables to. Where's the ground block? In the gutter?

A 1000.2 gets better signals than a 1000 and they probably saw a tree that was blocking 129 so they moved the dish.

 

[pete424]

Here is how the wire comes up out of the gutter. It wasn't full dark when he finished up.

 

[webbydude]

Is that the groundblock up there on the corner? If so, then that DEFINITELY needs to be addressed. No drip loops whatsoever. It's difficult to tell, but to me it doesn't look like there's any groundwire coming from that groundblock (HUGE-ASS no-no).

 

[pete424]

I don't know, but it seems to me it would have made more sense to run the cable laterally, parallel to the roof peak and then down the slope on the end. I'm not sure if that is clear or not.

 

[pete424]

No the ground block is down lower on the back of the house.

 

[harshness]

Is that the groundblock up there on the corner?

More than likely that's how long the original cables were. It would have been better (less insertion loss) had they re-run the cables all the way back to the grounding block.

 

[harshness]

I don't know, but it seems to me it would have made more sense to run the cable laterally, parallel to the roof peak and then down the slope on the end. I'm not sure if that is clear or not.

Anything that creates a dam on the roof is a bad idea as it can cause the roof to leak. It is best to head straight down to avoid catching dust, twigs, needles or leaves.

 

[webbydude]

More than likely that's how long the original cables were. It would have been better (less insertion loss) had they re-run the cables all the way back to the grounding block.

True that!

As you already alluded to, it looks like it's just simply a case of barreling the satellite lines to the existing coax; and as such the installer would've been better off to run the sat lines all the way to the groundblock.

 

[installwell]

I have seen MUCH worse installation than that on service calls ive been on to fix a prior installers horrible work.... While thats not the prettiest it could be I would certainly say its acceptable.

Unless you paid them to do that install (at around $99 or more) I would not really expect anything better than your pictures show. Especially since they did make the effort to get you fixed even in the dark/near dark.

Installers being late is not always a slam on you as the customer. Sometimes prior jobs that day take longer than planned and we are trying to get to everyone as fast as we can. Well most of us are anyway.

theres good and bad installers out there. some make absolutely no effort to to the job right, while others WILL take the time.

 

[Liquidforce88]

I live in Andover KS and I have 2 reciever (a 622 and a 625) and 4 tvs. Only one of which is high def. I have had my Dish network service since early February. From the very beginning I had a problem with my hi def channels pixelating and then losing the signal. Dish would send guys from a local installer out and they would "peak" the dish. After four visits, I was almost at the point of giving up. My dish, a 1000 was installed on my house when I bought it and they left it in the same place. No one thought there was any problem with obstacles. On this past Saturday another guy came out and he could see the problem and he messed around on the roof, then he replaced my 622 (making this the 3rd one I have had) and still could not get a decent signal on 129. After 4 hours of going up and down the ladder and not gaining anything he called his supervisor who decided he would come out with a new 1000.2 dish. By the time he got here it was near dark and I was beginning to lose patience. The two of them are up on the roof and the supervisor comes down and tells me it was a problem with my old dish and he has the new one "dialed in at 100%" on all three sats and he leaves. I go out in my back yard and this is what I find. They moved my dish about 15' and ran the cable down the roof the the gutter and then to a block type thing. My tv is working much better but I am not real happy with the way this looks. Is this an appropriate install or am I being overly critical?

pete424

Sometimes there is just not much you can do. If that is the place that you can get a Line Of Site. You can't run the cables along the roof for a couple of reasons, one we are not allowed to use clips to hold the cable in place, two as someone else has said the cable then creates dams on the roof.

It looks like they ran the cable down the roof then tied it to the closest support in the gutter. Cable does not come off the roll and just lay flat so that is what it will look like sometimes, more so when it is dual with messanger as that is what that cable looks like.

The only thing you can do is call and see if there is any other way to get the system to work.

 

[installwell]

Is that the groundblock up there on the corner? If so, then that DEFINITELY needs to be addressed. No drip loops whatsoever. It's difficult to tell, but to me it doesn't look like there's any groundwire coming from that groundblock (HUGE-ASS no-no).

its actually kind of funny, drip loops are so often done wrong to begin with. I've so often seen them with the cable running UP out of the connectors. lol

and I have been on so many service calls with no ground from the ground block I often wonder if many installers out there even HAVE ground wire on their van haha

i've even seen ground blocks not even 6 inches from an easily tappable ground, yet still no ground wire there... blows my mind.

 

[josem3]

If you don't want to see the cables on the roof, run the cables thru the vent, go to attic and came out on the lower side of the roof to make outside the loops with the ground block. That's the way I do on my installations with very extric customers.

 

[Andrewwski]

Acceptable for a Dish install, mostly yes. Acceptable on some people's terms (including mine), no. The best thing to do if you're someone like me who absolutely hates seeing any cables is to run (or re-run) them yourself.

 

[installwell]

Acceptable for a Dish install, mostly yes. Acceptable on some people's terms (including mine), no. The best thing to do if you're someone like me who absolutely hates seeing any cables is to run (or re-run) them yourself.

I agree, the people not wanting to see cables SHOULD run them themselves. with what Dish pays us to install we cant possibly do every job picture perfect.

what would be nice is if dish would give away free months of service, instead of promising free installation to a customer expecting a $200+ job that could be put in a magazine on display. (which some customers expect - for free as promised....)


you want a better job? offer the installer a 50 dollar bill at the start and i bet your cabling will look great at the end.

 

[installsatellites24]

well my question is "WHY IS THE DISH IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOF???" it should be on the roof over hang, and therefor the cables would have never been ran down the roof???? ME personally I would have failed this QAS and made the installer re install it. If you have any disconcern as to how the dish was installed on your house, then you need to contact Dish and complain. From what I see in the photos, there are no service loops or a ground wire from the ground block.

 

[webbydude]

well my question is "WHY IS THE DISH IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOF???" it should be on the roof over hang, and therefor the cables would have never been ran down the roof???? ME personally I would have failed this QAS and made the installer re install it. If you have any disconcern as to how the dish was installed on your house, then you need to contact Dish and complain. From what I see in the photos, there are no service loops or a ground wire from the ground block.

Unless I'm missing something, the OP never did post the actual groundblock. Furthermore, we as readers/posters don't have the full story as to the actual line of sight. It could very well be that the peak was the only place to install the dish and get a clear line of sight. Too many variables.

 

[IIP]

well my question is "WHY IS THE DISH IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOF???"

Exactly. Mounting the dish to the roof itself is a last resort for my company, but my installers are not allowed to roof-mount a dish over the living space (where water could someday penetrate the roof at the lag bolt locations and get into the house) unless the customer has signed off on a special waiver. In all other cases, roof mounts must be done on an overhang, so any leaks would only be on the outside of the house. And Bishop tape or Henry's is still required to seal the foot.

The cabling job isn't horrible under the circumstances, especially *if* that's the *ONLY* location where line-of-site was possible, but I would not have mounted the dish there in the first place unless the customer strenuously insisted AND signed my waiver. The waiver states, among other things, that the customer acknowledges that there will almost certainly be cable visible running down the roof...