Satellite Dish Care and Maintenance Tips

Satellite Dish Care and Maintenance Tips

If you take a stroll through any suburban neighborhood in the US, the chances are good that you’ll find hundreds of little black satellite dishes. For decades, they’ve allowed us to enjoy hundreds of television channels – and a great deal more besides.

To get the most from your dish, you’ll want to treat it to the occasional bit of maintenance. That means equipping it with the appropriate coaxial cables, and threading them properly from the dish to your receiver. It also means cleaning and caring for the dish itself.

But exactly what does this maintenance look like?

Why should you clean your dish?

When your dish becomes dirty and unreflective, it’ll lower the quality of the signal going into your television. If there’s a big chunk of debris settled into the dish, then you might find that the tv becomes completely unwatchable.

Take Extra Care

In order to clean the dish, you’ll need to get up to the roof. This might be challenging, depending on where the dish is attached. If you’re heading up on the roof, or you’re using a long stepladder, then make sure that you have someone with you. Don’t interfere with any connectors, and don’t take any unnecessary risks. To get the most from your dish, you’ll want to clean it regularly – which means that any risks you do take will multiply over time. In other words, don’t take any chances with your safety.

How to clean

You’ll want to do all of your cleaning in one go, which means dealing with the task in several stages. That way, you won’t have to go back up for a long while.

First, you’ll want to use a brush or a broom to sweep away any dust, dirt or leaves. Be sure that you don’t nudge the dish too violently, as this might mean that the dish needs to be repositioned. Following that, you can use a damp cloth to wipe away any dust or stuck-on debris. Don’t use too much moisture, otherwise you risk damaging the electronics.

Satellite dishes are designed to cope with heavy rain and snowfall. But it’s still worth your while to deal with large amounts of snowfall. You can use the same brush or broom you normally use. Don’t be tempted to accelerate the process with grit or salt; this will damage the dish.

If you find that your dish is frequently being interfered with by extreme weather, then you might consider either repositioning it or buying a cover so that it can be protected. If there’s extreme weather incoming, then you might make a point of detaching it and storing it until the danger has passed.

Masab Farooque is a Tech Geek, Writer, and Founder at The Panther Tech. He is also a lead game developer at 10StaticStudios. When he is not writing, he is mostly playing video games