I am interesting in getting a condominium, which is facing southwest but has no balcony, only a solarium. If I install my dish in the solarium will it be able to catch the signals (ofcourse once all FTA's r up), to get good reception. I wont be allowed to put the dish on the exterior wall, only behind the solarium glass. Any help is appreciated.
Hi Sadia, I have`my dish in the house. It works fine through my patio door galss. When you open the door the metal on the door kills the signal. I found that I can receive a good signal when there is only glass between the dish and the bird. The signal fails when anything other than glass gets in the way. I can also only get one bird as the access to the sky is very limited.
Glass definitely kills the signal. We tried it in my friend's condo and we barely got a signal. So we managed to hide in outside under a thin wood box. Works ih the box, but barely!
Sadia, I got mine in behind solarium glass, the only problem is (after a lot of experimenting and using some of the information I learned in physics) I found out that the signal refracts just like light and it bends towards the normal then away from the normal as it re-enters the air. Thus the elevation and azimth angles are a bit different and that is where you have to experiment (depending on your glass, etc.) Thus I suggest you buy a signal meter and hook it up to the dish and do some experimenting. (For elevation, It will always be in the negative thus the dish has to to bend towards the ground if its behing glass).