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Just thought I'd share a tip I read about in some caravan magazine which I have used to great effect.

Last year I bought a sky dish and pole to use on my van, just took the sky box from home and set it up with the tv. In theory it worked a treat, but attaching the pole to the A frame was quite tricky, and not particularly effective. The problems were too much play in the pole, hard to set up especially when the vans pointing the wrong way, and having to stare at a satellite dish every time you look out of the saloon window. Having seen loads of people with their dish on a tripod I decided it was the way to go, but being as tight as a sharks backside, I didn't like the associated price tags. In the article it suggested using a rotary clothes drier. I bought one for 9 quid from Wilkinsons, took off the washing line, chopped about 12 inches off each arm then upended it. It looked the part, and when we went away last weekend got chance to try it for the first time. Managed to get an excellent signal within 5 minutes of getting it out, and despite not even bothering to peg it out, we managed to keep an excellent picture all the time. It's the kind of tip I like, cos it works and it's cheap.

If you do go down this route, make sure you drill a small hole through the plastic part into the pole and when erected screw in a self tapper. If you don't the whole assembly will swivel around in the wind (like it was designed to do) and you'll lose your picture very quickly. Also, I got my dish from some guy on ebay who happened to install dishes for sky. He charged me about 15 quid including the dish, lnb, pole and loads of wire. All in all I now have sky tv in my van for less than 30 quid, can't be bad!!

i have got a portable washing line tripod keep meaning to use it for a sat system,how did you fix the dish to the tripod tho.

david

Another option..........

Using that pole that you used to attach the the A frame. Put it in a 'ground screw'. On sale at Lidl next week for only £3.99

Attached the dish to the pole using an exhaust clamp from my local car spares place for about 80p. It goes through the two holes in the dish bracket, just discard the exhaust bracket and use the u-bolt and nuts. Reply to Ronnie, don't think the ground screw would work, I found the pole clamped the the A-frame had too much flex and think the ground screw would probably be the same. If anyone's tried it they could let us know on here hopefully if it works.

Nice one Ronnie, maybe if I'd tried clamping it to the jockey wheel in the 1st place I wouldn't have needed the tripod. Never mind, it's working now which is the main thing. Thanks for that tho.

Quote: Originally posted by wynthesurfer on 17/6/2008

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I`ve got mine fixed to a camera tripod very sturdy and you can pick them up from boot sales for about £2.

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