Interior Dish Installation

[tpilot]

I have a large loft over my garage. My ground level is partially obstructed by trees. Are signals receivable through a standard wood and shingle roof? My Lat is 42.03 and Long is 71.20 if that helps.

[crankbooster]

You need to have an open view to the sky A glass window can work but not roof or bricks

[pictureon]

Originally Posted by crankbooster

You need to have an open view to the sky A glass window can work but not roof or bricks

I do not think glass window would work either.

[crankbooster]

Originally Posted by pictureon

I do not think glass window would work either.

Check this out

[wejones]

I've had better luck getting RF through walls than through windows, but it depends on what kinds of material. Several years ago someone posted on r.v.s.t about putting a fixed C-band dish in his attic, getting reception through the roof, so it can be done, but I wouldn't count on it working.
I think the key is to keep the roof/wall/window as close to the dish as possible. I did an experiment by putting a piece of 1/2" plywood in front of a Ku dish once. If I completely blocked the lnbf, right at the lnbf, I still got reasonable reception. Signal level down maybe 40% or so. But if I moved the plywood out away from the dish, the reception got poor fast. Ie it's not so much absorption by the material, but scattering, and the further away, the worse the scattering gets.
Re glass, I think the type of glass makes a difference. Ie perhaps high E glass might have more of a metalic coating. At my old house, for VHF reception with a handheld radio, I could often get better reception next to a window, but at my current house, reception is worse at a window, and I think the high-E glass is the reason.
In any event, you shouldn't count on being able to get reception through either windows, walls or roofs, but sometimes it is possible. Just depends on the material, how strong the signal is, etc, etc. But don't count on it working.

[tpilot]

I'll need to find an expert in my area and go from there to see what other options I may have.Thanks for the input and help. Much appreciated.

[xtgold]

Somebody once said the higher the frequency,the more the signal takes on the characteristics of light.Since the roof and shingles block light,you will get nothing.A closed window will cut the signal quality by 25 or 30%
Another upside down dish from a euro site.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by xtgold

Somebody once said the higher the frequency,the more the signal takes on the characteristics of light.Since the roof and shingles block light,you will get nothing.A closed window will cut the signal quality by 25 or 30%
....

It is true that the higher the freq of the rf, the more similar it is to light, but it's not nearly as simple as this when it comes to blocking a signal.
The above comparison doesn't get very far when you look at the highest end of the electromagnetic spectrum, ie X-rays and Gamma-rays, both of which go through things that visible light doesn't appear to penetrate.
Think about an old wide mesh C-band dish, which completely blocks low frequency C-band, but Ku goes through.
Also, if you think about what windows are made out of... ie materials like sand... silica... you don't think of a beach as being invisible.
Also, think of all the birds that run into windows, because at certain angles they become almost perfect mirrors. Or run a sander over your window, and it is no longer transparent.
Another example is the various medical imaging methods, like magnetic resonance and X-ray, one of which is lower freq than visible light and the other higher freq. So transparency really doesn't have a direct relationship with frequency. It's more a case that different materials have very specific frequencies that they interact with, which is responsible for colors, etc, since certain freqs are absorbed and others aren't, etc.
Most of the materials that things like asphalt shingles are made of are all things that visible light could go through in some other configuration.
Really, much of the electromagnetic spectrum will go through most materials, partly because all matter is predominantly space. Think of the atoms and molecules in solids as similar to the galaxies and solar systems in the universe, ie mostly space.
There are several mechanisms whereby solid and liquid materials interact with electromagnetic waves. There is absorption, reflection, refraction, diffraction, scattering, etc, etc, many of which are related.
But the bottom line is that much of what people consider to be materials that "block" light is really a complicated combination of these various interactions, and has more to do with scattering than blocking the light.
Anyway, it's not that simple.

[xtgold]

Back in the C band days there was an article in radio electronics magazine about making a flat fresnel lens C band dish completely out of plywood.
When you think fresnel lens you think of magnifying glasses and the lenses in lighthouses.The same concept was used for sat signals.I believe they called it constructive and destructive interference of the incoming signal.Depending on how the rings were cut in the plywood,the incoming signal would be concentrated to the lnb mounted behind the dish.Since the lens had less gain than a similar sized dish,(dishes had to be 8 or 10 feet in the C band days)the dish never caught on.It would be a good project for ku band,since a 4 foot hunk of plywood would be acceptable.The article even had a program in basic for figuring out the cutting radius for the various rings,depending on the size of the dish and gain required.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by xtgold

Back in the C band days there was an article in radio electronics magazine about making a flat fresnel lens C band dish completely out of plywood.
When you think fresnel lens you think of magnifying glasses and the lenses in lighthouses.The same concept was used for sat signals.I believe they called it constructive and destructive interference of the incoming signal.Depending on how the rings were cut in the plywood,the incoming signal would be concentrated to the lnb mounted behind the dish.Since the lens had less gain than a similar sized dish,(dishes had to be 8 or 10 feet in the C band days)the dish never caught on.It would be a good project for ku band,since a 4 foot hunk of plywood would be acceptable.The article even had a program in basic for figuring out the cutting radius for the various rings,depending on the size of the dish and gain required.

I wonder if H polarity is reflected differently from V polarity? If so, maybe left/right sides of sheet would be one polarity and up/down sides of sheet for other polarity?