Omg, Why !!!

cablewithaview

Stand against retrans!!!
Original poster
Supporting Founder
Apr 18, 2005
398
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DeKalb County, AL
Man, I just have to ask. Why would anyone mount a dish on top of there roof? :confused: talk about a problem waiting to happen. :eek: That would be like me putting a p hook in the roof to tie off a cable drop. that just doesn't happen. :rolleyes: I have always questioned the practice but no one really has given me a good answer. I can see the eve, a pole, a wall, etc. but on top of the roof? :shocked
 
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I have my FTA dish on the roof of my shed. I also have my Dish 500 mounted to the side of my shed. I did not want to mount the dishes to my house, where it could cause leaks and damage, so I put them on my shed. Worse case happens, it won't damage anything. And they are up out of reach of people :)
 
For starters --

-Less obstructions. At my old place, everything from PAS 9 to Ia7 was unblocked. I'l love to have the dish on the roof where I am now, but the landlord just redid the roof before we moved in.

-It's out of the way. You're not worrying about the kid next door screwing with it when you're not home.

-The roof, during the months of April and September, is the best place to be after 6pm in Minnesota :)
 
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don't get me wrong, everyone has there on reason for doing that. me I just can't see it. the one thing you depend on to keep the weather off of you and it get's holes put in it.
 
Yep... I see them all the time. Lazy installers D* installers that can't hit the satellites in our area. C'mon guys....101=52 degrees elevation, 110 = 48, and 119=43. They figure it is easier to climb up on the roof, slap 4 bolts in the roof, and watch the roof rot for years to come.

I've personally been part of a roof repair at a rent house due to a roof mount. It wasn't fun.

My all time favorite is the new D* installs around here, someone likes to mount them on the sides of oak trees. I don't know about you, but I run the weed eater around my trees.
 
speaking of trees, that is my next pet pive. again why mount something that is basically an over size ground rod ??? and using them like telephone poles to get to the dish a 100 feet away from the house?
 
D* does it that way because the installers are paid a flat rate. Can't make any money taking your time to do the job properly!

My dad and I installed his ExpressVu dish on the roof of his house almost 6 years ago and no leaks.

It can be done but it has to be done right.
 
I have a friend who got a D* install recently and the installer just bolted the mount into the shingles WITHOUT using any tar!

My dishes are all mounted to non-penetrating roof mounts installed on the flat roof of my utility shed. These mounts stayed put during Katrina...
 
I have most of my dishes on the roof because that is really the only spot for me to get decent signals

-can't mount it on the ground (HOA)
-if I mount it on the deck railing, it wobbles and I lose so much LOS
-when I moved in to the house, there was 2 dishes already there (for Dish Notwork) so I just used the existing masts
-low elevation here in MN (38.4 for True South)
 
The company I just got fired from had lots of problems with leaky roofs. The jackasses were NOT using any caulk, tar, pitch pads, or anything else.
 
Talking about sloppy installers, our local Mediacom guys love to drill a hole through the outside wall, right behind the tv the cable is going to. Looks real good. No drip loops, no sealing, just a plastic pass through. Brand new houses with black cables running on the outside of the house to each room. YUCK! And I have seen several Directv installs that have the switch installed at the dish with a hugh ball of coax everywhere. I just shake my head :)
 
If you order the roof mount from Soudon they come with a plastic screw expander thingy. You drill a hole in the roof and use that to screw the mount down. I'm not sure exactly if it's waterproof, but so far seems to do ok. I will probably put some tar and/or caulk and maybe some sort of shingle cut a special way up there in a few days. Main reason I went with the roof is we don't have a lot of yard area in the front of the house facing south. We have maybe a 10 x 10 foot area that's not a part of a flower garden and that's about it. Also, put it up there to keeps kids from messing with it. We have a lot of kids in the area, and live about 1.5 blocks from an elementary school and 2 blocks from a middle school. Also, there's a big "heritage days" celebration every year that gets lots of people in our yard- happens the week before 4th of July, and they conviently have the parade route going in front of our house. I didn't realize that til it happened a few weeks ago. Heard sirens outside from the firetrucks, walked outdoors and all of sudden noticed the big signs that the police put up right next to my car that'd been sitting there all night that said no parking order of police - nice that they didn't let us know about all of this ahead of time. I ended up moving my car around the corner. Darn good thing I did, about 10 minutes later tons of clowns, antique cars, and horseback riders were parading right in front of my house. Next year, I invite the family over to sit on our front porch.
 
I use "Black Jack" brand tar/roof sealant to seal around the screw holes in my shed roof. I also filled the holes with silicon caulk and then drove the screws in. Not sure if that helps or not, but cheap to do. I need to go up and put another coat of Black Jack on. One hint - wear gloves, it stains your hands :)
 
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