DirecTV in an Apartment?

Sc00ter asks: "I live in an apartment and I'm seeking advice on how to mount a DirecTV dish without causing damage to the building. I don't have a balcony to put it on, only windows. There are some people that have worked around this by using other types of antennas, but the cost of such a device is too high. I have also seen some window mount type antennas but I don't think I should trust these in the wind. I was hoping somebody out there had been in a similar situation and had a tip or two."

Comments

Football Season

[saden1]

Yes, it is almost that time of the year again, where we give our money to the NFL and DirectTV.

Hail to the Redskins! Joe Gibbs is back!!!!!

My Case

[k.ellsworth]

On the building i lived, i had the same problem, just that i live on the 4th floor (6 floors building), so i asked the community manager about using the internal shafts of the building up to the building's roof, and place my dish on it... i had on ly to ask the manager about and voila'...

if that doesn't work do a kinda ghostbusters 2 movie solution, turn the whole building into a reciving antena.

Make a good case

[webscathe]

Note, I don't live in an apartment but...

First off, your landlord can specify exactly what they're allowed and not allowed to do when they sign a waiver.

Second, if you approach your landlord in a way that makes it sound like they're getting a deal out of it, they may just say yes. Try pitching it to them like, "I want to upgrade your apartment, free of charge, to be satellite ready!"

Re:Make a good case

[No Tears In The End]

First off, your landlord can specify exactly what they're allowed and not allowed to do when they sign a waiver.


Gee, way to answer a question that he didn't ask.

Thank You Captain Obvious.

I've heard stories of people successfully geting indoor dishes to pick up a good enough signal for satellite TV. Granted, these dishes were pointing out windows and had no curtains in front of them.

NTITE

Re:Make a good case

[afidel]

Actually the FCC has ruled that you can not sign away your right to put up an antenna up to 1m in size which does not cause undue harm to the property so long as you install it in an area that is designated for your private use.

Re:Make a good case

[allism]

In our last apartment we had the dish pointing out the window. Worked fine. Here is how the setup worked:

We had a loft on the north wall of the apartment. The apartment had a south-facing window directly across from the loft.

We mounted the satellite dish to the floor level of the loft (I am not sure how to explain it - it was mounted to the vertical side of the loft floor, so that it was visible from the loft but not taking any floor space).

We pointed the dish out the window, and made the minor adjustments necessary to get optimum signal. There was no screen on the window, and we never got any interference from the window - matter of fact, the only time we ever got interference was when our cats would jump from the loft into the windowsill. I think the lowest our signal ever went was about 85.

Now we live in a house, and I can tell you the bonus to having had it mounted inside the apartment - we never had to scrape snow from the dish during a blizzard, and never had the wind knock it out of alignment! It sure was ugly, but, what the hell, we're geeks, it would be unnatural to NOT have funky hardware as part of the decor. If we ever have to go that route again I might paint it, though...

Patching the holes when we moved out was a five-minute job, btw.

Ideas

[MBCook]

I've seen quite a few dishes mounted, here are some ideas:

• I've seen people stick a small pole in a large bucket that was filled with concrete and mount the dish on that. If you could get permission to just set that next to the building that would be fine, or you put it inside and point it through a window, but it would be ugly.
• Lots of people around here have the dishes clipped onto a railing of some sort that they have near (like a balcony, but you might have something). This would hold it just fine, if you have a railing of some kind near.
• Build a mount. You should be able to rig something up. For example, use a 2" by 4" the height of the window. Then you close the window on it (securely and tightly). You could paint it to make it look better. You mount the dish to the 2" by 4" (or a block of wood attached to it). By putting a small piece of wood on the sides and top/bottom of the 2" by 4", you can make it easily support the weight of the dish with just friction (no screwing into the wall).
• Neighbors. Do any of your neighbors have dishes? Just attach a multiswitch (basically a splitter for satellites) and you can use their signal with no problem for either of you. It's usually used to allow you to have boxes in more than 2 rooms, but it will do the same for you. You might not even need one if they have a Dual-LNB dish and only one simple reciever.
• Through the roof. You might (might Might MIGHT) be able to get a usuable signal through the roof (if you are on the top floor) or through a wall. The closer you are to the equator the better.
• Ask a professional installer. Find one who will give you a free "estimate", and see what they think.

Re:Ideas

[Daniel Wood]

From my understanding, the leave have water in them. Water REALLY fucks with radio waves, badly. The roof would likely contain little moisture.

Re:Ideas

[orogorhotmail.com]

What i would do is do the same thig that we did in our building, asking everyone if they want to have a dish ( they ll probably say yes ), then go see the guy in charge of the community stuff, tell him than everyone would like to have a dish, and suggest a proffessional installation for everyone. Our community have 400 flats , they paied eatch one 100, this make a total of 40 000 , now we have 4 proffesionnals dishs installed on the top of the highest building by proffessionals with switches and so, and now everyone have a satellite plug in his house. Notice than it was quite fast to obtain this, well everything is relative , but it took like 4 months. (escuse me for typos, grammary and stuff, french guy there)

Re:Ideas

[jadenyk]

As was explained to me during my recent Direct TV install, anything organic will screw with reception.

That being said, I seriously doubt you could get signal through a roof. And even if you could, come winter, there better not be any snow on that roof.

Personally, I'd make a small platform to hang out my window. But then again, you have to have windows that face the right direction in the first place.

Re:Ideas

[itwerx]

Big magnets!
Seriously!

Works like this:
Put the dish on a large flat padded base, tie 3 or 4 short guy wires from the disk mounting bracket to a couple of large rare-earth magnets (you can get 'em with handy mounting loops and whatnot at Edmund Scientific for a price and most surplus places for a lot less). Then, with a buddy on the inside and you hanging out the window, press the base against the glass, pull each guy-wire out as far as it will go and have your buddy put a matching magent on the inside, voila'!
This is probably hard to visualise from this post but all you're really doing is using strong magnets to clamp the dish to the window itself. If you can make your mounting base large enough and thin enough you can even do away with the guy-wires and just make a magnet sandwich.
Note: make sure the outer magnets (against the base) have a release mechanism or you will probably break the glass at some point.
Alternatively, you could pull the window (or maybe even just the screen) out of the frame and substitute a bit of plywood as a semi-permanent mounting point.
Good luck! :)

Talk to your landlord

[mcgroarty]

Your landlord will probably agree to a professional installation, and you can get those for free when you purchase the unit from many dealers.

If you're wondering whether they'll agree, there's a good chance your worries are unfounded. Rentals are at a long time low right now with Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac handing out home loans like candy, and most supers will bend over backwards to keep you happy.

Tips

[jakev383]

I used to install for Time Warner and Direct TV. First thing is to ask your landlord. Most of them are not too uptight, and will allow an installation onto the roof. If not, we used a tripod whic we purchased for $20 at RadioShack, and sold to customers for $34.95. The buckets with concrete in them aren't a bad idea; we use them now for PTZ cameras we put on our construction sites. My first bet would be talk to the property manager, though. Chances are good you're not he first person to ask.

Why not ask them?

[nacturation]

Give DirecTV a call. Tell them you want to give them your business, but you don't have any easy place to mount the dish and see if they have any suggestions. Heck, maybe they have some special kind of mounting gear for just your type of situation.

The only other thing that comes to mind is getting permission from the property manager to put the dish on the roof and then run some wire down the side of the building through the window, to the receiving unit. If you're in a low-rise unit and/or not far from the roof, this may work but I wouldn't count on running ten stories worth of wire just so you can get your TV fix.

Re:Put it on the roof

[nachoboy]

The regulation he was referring to is 47 C.F.R. Section 1.4000 and essentially prohibits restrictions of antennae placement to receive TV broadcasts.

However, the management of the institution would have been well within their rights to deny the resident the privilege of mounting an antenna on the roof, as the roof does not belong to the resident.

The FCC has a very helpful Fact Sheet regarding the issue. For those too lazy to click, renters can install an antenna on the private area of their residence (indoors or on a private balcony or porch) but public areas (shared walkways, balconies, and roofs) do not fall under the scope of this legislation. As such, management may impose restrictions on the mounting of such permanent structures as television dishes.

I would highly recommend any renters read the link above. Many apartment complex owners are not aware of the legislation (or even worse, are acutely aware of it!) and will attempt to bully you into submission by flatly prohibiting any sort of dish installation. The FCC order is rather strong ammunition in such cases.

fcc has info

[mrzaph0d]

FCC Fact Sheet on Placement of Antenmas

Landlords and HOAs can prohibit installation in:

common areas

rooftops

outside walls

window sills

so, unless permission is granted from landlord or homeowners associations you can't install there. the nice people at dish network have a landlord permission form and a diagram of exclusive areas.

A better place to ask might be...

[rusty0101]

at the Tivo community online. Your situation is hardly novel.

Some of the solutions have been mentioned here, flower pots, getting the landlord to agree to a roof mount, etc.

There are others who simply take the window, open it up, make sure that the window screen is fibreglass instead of wire, mount the dish on what becomes a piece of furniture, pointing out the window. When it gets cold they fill the void where the window would otherwise be, with a couple of pieces of plexiglass. It doesn't even have to be transparent.

Then there are the phased array antenas, which I agree cost too much for most appartment dwellers.

On the other hand, pretty much nothing I can do will help me. Physics is working against my getting sattelite reception from my appartment. Unless someone comes up with a way to position a satelite near the north pole, I have too much building in my way.

-Rusty

One word: Plexiglass

[affegott]

I had an apartment with no balcony and a Southern facing window.

I had line of sight to the primary sat, but the signal would not go through the glass. I just went to good ol' Home Depot and bought a sheet of plexiglass and some 2x4's. After building a simple frame and inserting it into the window I was good to go.

My first attempt involved 2 spaced sheets of plexiglass, but I couldn't get a signal. 1 sheet worked great.

I lost about 10 points of signal, rain fade was hardly a problem.

Re:Do the damage

[gcaseye6677]

If you're in the United States, your landlord is violating FCC regulations. Scroll to about the middle of the page.

Re:Do the damage

[ForestGrump]

Nope, if your only renting the unit, and the roof is not part of your rental, then they have authority over the roof.

Now, if you put a dish inside your apt, and had it pointing through a window...and they went into your unit and tossed out the dish. Then they would be in violation.

grumpy

Re:Do the damage

[Bob MacSlack]

Go read again. The roof is a "common area" and isn't covered by that rule. It only applies to antennas mounted in an area you have sole access to, so the property owner can remove them whenever they want.

Re:Put it on the roof

[nachoboy]

Not personally, no (thankfully management at my complex is very reasonable), but apartment "policies" like you describe are exactly the sort of restrictions this legislation is written to prevent (or pre-empt, rather). Depending on your location and how large your apartment/complex is, there's a good chance management does know of this regulation. I'd suggest pulling up as much as you can on the FCC site and enlisting the help of your proposed satellite provider. Put up your dish and call their bluff!

Oh, and do let us know the outcome...

Re:Put it on the roof

[cdrudge]

You are correct. An apartment compex owner, a HOA, etc can't say you can't have a dish positioned somewhere due to how it might look. They also can not limit the number of dishes that you have installed as long as all are under the 1-meter limit.

If the community offers the same satellite service and the pricing is not unreasonable, they can deny you the right to install the dish. Say you want DirecTV and they have Dish, they can not deny you the right to have a DirecTV dish. If they say thought that you have to pay $20 just for the access to the line then you can install your own.

They can deny you the right to do a penetrating mount. This means no driliing/bolting into a balcony, wall, roof, etc without their WRITTEN permission. This would also include running the line indoors.

Tripod, bucket-o-quikcrete, etc are fine. So is u-bolting to a balcony railing as long as no holes are drilled into their property. As to getting the line indoors, this is the exact reason why inductive couplers for windows/patio doors and flat cable were invented. :)

It's all about plexiglass! :)

[steppin_razor_LA]

I don't have a balcony on my apartment and can not mount a dish on the roof or bolt it to the external wall.

I do have casement windows.

Solution:

One of my casement windows in my bedroom is always open. In its place is a plexiglass sheet that I purchased at home depot. I always keep the blinds closed in the bedroom anyways (sunlight! ick!) so this isn't an eye sore.

The DirecTV signal will go through plexiglass with barely any signal degradation. Apparently plexiglass has a different dielctric (sp?) constant than glass (which absolutely destroys the signal).

I get excellent reception. The only thing that stinks is the "once or twice a year" event where someone bumps the satellite dish. However, since I marked on the dresser the orientation marks, it usually only takes me a few minutes to get it recalibrated.

Ghetto geek yes, but it sure beats AT&T cable!