Thinking about setting up my FA antenna outside on a mast that I have with my satellite dish on it, but have a few questions I was hoping someone could please answer.
Is lightening protection required? The antenna will be about 15-20ft off the ground (still below the height of the house). If so, how does one do this?
What sort of temperatures is the FA antenna capable of withstanding? I live in a northern part of Canada where -30 Celsius is common in the winter (and +30 in the summer). Will it be able to withstand this and if so, will there be loss of signal?
I’ll be connecting the antenna to some pre-existing RG6 cable that is outside. I’ll then set up my FA filter, dongle, and Raspberry Pi indoors where the cable comes in. It’s about 30ft of cable from the antenna to the inside. Will I need an amplifier or is the one in the dongle sufficient?
Will attaching the antenna to the same mast as my satellite mess with any signals? The satellite doesn’t get used, it’s just there.
Is lightening protection required? The antenna will be about 15-20ft off the ground (still below the height of the house). If so, how does one do this?
Is the mast metallic?
Is the mast grounded?
Is there any lightning protection provided for the satellite dish?
There are differing opinion on this issue.
Some persons don’t bother about it and do nothing about it, just like the roof-top dish antenna or free-to-air TV antennas generally dont have any lightning protection installed.
Some others care for lightning surges and statics, and connect the mast to an earth rod, and also install a small device called gas discharge lightning surge protector.
What sort of temperatures is the FA antenna capable of withstanding? I live in a northern part of Canada where -30 Celsius is common in the winter (and +30 in the summer). Will it be able to withstand this and if so, will there be loss of signal?
Sorry, no experience in this regards, as I live in an apartment and my FA antenna is inside the apartment where it does not have to face any extreme climate/temperatures. However mostly these antennas are installed outdoors in all sorts of climates, without any severe problem due to weather. As such your antenna should also be ok outdoors.
I’ll be connecting the antenna to some pre-existing RG6 cable that is outside. I’ll then set up my FA filter, dongle, and Raspberry Pi indoors where the cable comes in. It’s about 30ft of cable from the antenna to the inside. Will I need an amplifier or is the one in the dongle sufficient?
This should be OK, and you will not need an amplifier.
The RG6 has an attenuation of about 6.5 dB / 100ft. For 30 ft the attenuation will be about 2.2 dB. The Pro Stick has a built-in amplifier which has a gain of 19 dB, and will easily overcome the 2.2 dB attenuation of 30 ft RG6 coax.
Will attaching the antenna to the same mast as my satellite mess with any signals? The satellite doesn’t get used, it’s just there.
Since the satellite dish only receives the signal, and does not transmit any signal, it should not cause any interference even when it is operational. Don’t worry about interference from the dish. Just take care that antenna is not lower than the dish, but higher than it, so that dish does not obstruct any signals from reaching the antenna.
as the flight aware antenna is mostly fiberglass (non metallic) and if you aren’t going massively higher (i suspect you aren’t even going to move the pole it self) than your current dish installation, i would say that you at no greater risk of lightning than you are now.
like abcd says as long as the dish is not blocking line of site to the antenna you wont impede it’s performance.
Thanks all. I tried installing it outside this morning, but I went from ~60 active flights down to ~3. I’m assuming the dish was impeding the signals to the antenna as it wasn’t much higher than it. I’m going to try installing it in a different location to see what happens.
I’m assuming it wasn’t eh RG6 cable that is outside as that seems to feed the satellite perfectly fine. All connectors that I were using were then used indoors and went back to the normal settings.
But there must be metallic wires inside the antenna, That will also attract lighting
But I prefer install a lighting protection because its also connected to my ISP modem and ISP always tell you to turn off their modems during lighting storm
Something doesn’t sound right here. Are all the connectors solid? Anything corroded? Anything wet? Rg6 is fine for short runs. I’m using 25’ of it without problem. An outside location, especially if it is higher than the interior location, should show better results.
