btalbott said:
Wow, what a day. I'm getting 2 HR20-700s and one standard box installed. I needed these installers to drop the 4 lines from the SAT into a structured panel in my master br, where I'm going to put the multiiswitch. Also, 3 drops to the master br (2 for sat, 1 for OTA antenna). The other lines are already ran inside the house. Since they didn't have a pole they offered to put in the pole mount for free as long as I paid for the materials (no problem on my end). So we agreed on $150 for the 2 wall fishes. He stated he could have charged me for 2 wall fishes for the 4 lines going into the closet (seems a little excessive to me since its all going down the same hole). You installers out there...is this a fair price?
1. The pole mount was the biggest pain, as they didn't (or at least that's what installer said) tell him it was going to be a pole mount (even though I called the place beforehand). So I went to Home Depot and got a 1-1/2" section of steel rigid conduit. Wow this stuff is heavy and at $38 not too cheap. Now I know why it's measured by inside vs outside diameter. I put some 3/8" lag bolts into the bottom as suggested to stop it from moving. Also put a piece of 6' rebar inside the pole and filled it with cement. If this thing moves, I'll be surprised. They didn't have a level so I got mine and leveled it out. So I did everyhing except dig the hole.
2. They put in the 4 lines by going through my soffit and over to the structured wiring box. What surprised me is they didn't go in as close to the house as possible and went right in the middle of the soffit. Don't think this will make a difference?
3. I'm not thinking this guy has done too many of these installs for the new dish, as he asked me if I knew anyone that had just had one recently installed. He wanted to know how many satellites he should be seeing??
4. They dropped their drill bit down the wall and their drill broke. I let them use mine.
5. Waiting for the pole to set up. I leveled it up ~ 5:30pm. You guys think tomorrow morning at 9am will be enough time to put up the dish?
6. They left around 30 minutes ago and have the following left to do:
a. Wall fish the 3 drops for the master br down to the structured wiring box. They got the other side down the wall in the br, just not inside the wiring box.
b. Put up the ground block for the 4 lines and then connect the satellite up to the ground block.
c. Ground the ground block and dish
So to pole mount, do 1 wall fish and 1/2 of the other wall fish, they were here from 2pm - 8:30. Back tomorrow at 9am.
Wow. I hope tomorrow goes better than today.
Quick questions. I have a pool that has a ground wire for the pumps. Can he tie into this ground or would it be better to run another ground wire and hit the house ground?
This guy says he has a birddog and it won't take long to line up the dish....We'll see.
Tks.
Bill
1. I did not tell my installer ahead of time that it was a pole mount, and he didn't have any trouble with it, but then I had the pole already in.
Count on them telling you the pole is to small, (1 1/2) mine was 1 7/8th and they said the mast would not tighted down on it, and it did not ....
I had my guy line it up and shot a few screws into it.
How high of a pole did you go with ?
2. No difference, just a cosmetic thing, depends on you, your the one looking at it, once it's done you won't be scrutinizing it afterwords.... unless they do a sloppy job, but you can stay with them and tell them how you want it done .... or ... you can do it ....
3. all of them. He should know this info. We should'nt have to tell them how to do it. ... or we would do it ourselves, I will set my next AT-9 up myself.
5. Well, they tell you to let it set for 24 hours I think, unless you got the quick dry stuff, you'll have to look at the bag and see what it says.
If you think it's good to go, see if you can move it around (probably not).
It also depends on your weather in your area, is it dry where this stuff is setting up quickly ?
I don't know how high your pole is (mine is 13 ft out of the ground, 3 ft in the ground) How deep did they plant yours ?, below the front line, I hope.
6. Plan on being there for a good part of the day, your the supervisor make sure it's done the way you want, seeing your paying them, but also stay out of thier way at the same time.
7. House ground is the recommended way.
8. If the guy does not have a problem mounting (due to the pole size) it should be a 15-30 minute job to line up the dish, my guy did it in 10 minutes while explaining everything he was doing on the dish to me, he knows I will be doing my next one, I hate to have others do something I can do myself.
btw, my installer said that the highest signal strengh he's had when pointing these dishes is 69-70 , I told him I will not accept a 70 on my sat system.
but he was right, I played with the birdgog myself...
When we got to the receiver installation, my SS was all in the 90's, so don't think the signal is way out of line if he's in the 70's outside.
Make sure he does the fine tuning on the AT-9.
Good luck,
Jimbo
