wildblueinstall

WILDBLUE INSTALLATION INFORMATION

I have added this section to my website for the benefit of those customers who may be receiving our services in
regards to WildBlue services. I have tried to answer many of the frequently asked questions. WildBlue accounts
for less than 10% of my business, and is the ONLY residential contract that we as a company maintain. As you can
see from the details of our website we are much more involved in the commercial VSAT (the larger cousins to your
WildBlue system) as well as network maintenance and construction. Take a look around and if you have any
questions, please feel free to contact us.

FREQUENTLY ASKED INSTALLATION QUESTIONS

Q. I have heard that there are sometimes extra charges for installations, could you explain to
me what a "Free Basic Installation" consists of?

A. Yes there are sometimes extra charges for an installation, and I will outline those below. As for a basic
installation, it consists of mounting you dish antenna on an approved surface, routing two coax lines up to
100' (each) in length through one wall penetration (either wood or one layer of masonry) and then
connecting those coax wires to your modem, which should be within 6' of your computer. The system will
also be grounded to an approved ground source, such as your home's electrical meter box, breaker box,
cold water pipe, or HVAC service box or race. We cannot ground to gas piping or a ground rod that is not
bonded back to the house system.

Q. What are "approved mounting surfaces?"

A.   Solid wood siding, brick walls, block walls, flat log walls, and certain decks are all approved. Each
surface must extend to a minimum of six feet (6') above the walking surface beneath that mount (in other
words, the block foundation of your house does not qualify). Decks must be made of certain wood
(pressure treated) and be a minimum of a 6X6 support pole and have cross bracing of equal strength that
is more at least six feet (6') above the ground, the deck must be at least nine feet (9') tall in order to
qualify. WildBlue will tell you that Roofs and Stucco walls are also approved mounting surfaces, however
our company will not use them due to problems that have occurred in the past (see explanations below).

Q. What are examples of unapproved mounting surfaces?

A. The most common surface that we run into is Vinyl siding. In addition to vinyl siding other unapproved
mounting surfaces are metal siding, cedar shingle siding, fascia boards, deck railings, asbestos siding
(we can't even drill into asbestos) and wooden freestanding poles. Our company will also not mount to
roofs over living spaces because of the high potential of leaks. If a customer is willing to sign a waiver, we
will mount to roofs over garages and out buildings (such as sheds). Be aware before you choose the roof
over an out building that we ABSOLUTELY MUST bury the wiring back to the main building and the total
length of wiring must be less than 100 feet in length (there is an extra charge for this service).   We will
also not mount to most stucco siding because of the material that it is made of. All locations that a dish
will be mounted are required to have a place to install the cross supports ("stays") except for free
standing steel posts. Also, we cannot mount the antenna ANYWHERE on a mobile home

Q. What if you can't mount a dish antenna to my house.

A. Simple, place it on a pole!   The cost of the mount includes up to 30' trench work and the associated
conduit that the wiring will be placed in. As a professional, I believe that the pole mount is one of the best
places to install an antenna. When you don't need it anymore, dig it up and there are no holes in your
siding, deck or most importantly your roof!

Q. I am not sure that my house qualifies for free basic installation, what are some of the
custom charges that I could be responsible for?

A. A pole mount is the most common. Outside of that I do charge for running wiring through certain crawl
spaces, all attics work, fishing wire inside of walls, or attaching wiring to the joists of an un finished
basement.

Q. Can I install my own pole and save the money?

A. NO, the pole must be professionally installed.

Q. Is there a way I can help with an extensive installation and save some money?

A. MAYBE, it depends on what tasks need to be accomplished, and what your skills may be. I will not
allow a customer to do work that has anything to do with the structural integrity of the system such as pole
mounts, mounts in general, dish assembly, or grounding. If you want to save some money by doing your
own crawl space fishes, attic runs, etc. please ask!

Q. Why am I limited to 100' of a coax run?

A. The longer the run of a coax, the higher potential for lower signal powers or signal loss. WildBlue
states that 150' of coax or less is good, however, in my experience I have started having problems when
lengths have exceeded 100'. Therefore as a professional I have limited the wire run to 100' (this is
actually 2 runs of 100' coax (one for transmit one for receive) so a total of 200' of coax is used.

Q. How fast is WildBlue, and is it worth it to switch from my cable connection to WildBlue?

A. To answer this question, you must first understand what WildBlue is designed for. WildBlue was
designed to give us rural customers a way to get "higher" speed Internet. WildBlue is a vast (and I do
mean VAST) improvement over dial-up access. You will receive faster downloads, uploads, and your
browsing experience will be enhanced.   Satellite services in general, including WildBlue, have limitations.
Latency (the time it takes a signal to make a round trip through space to the NOC) prevents a significant
portion of Internet gaming to be less than satisfactory. Also, VPN service, VOiP and similar services are
not well tolerated by WildBlue.   That being said, I would not recommend that you trade in your terrestrial
cable modem or DSL service in on a satellite service, but if you don't have access to any other
broadband service, WildBlue is definitely for you!

Q. How long does an install take?

A. I generally advise customers to allow 4 hours for an installation. I will call you prior to coming to your
house and gain some background information about the installation, and I will have a better time estimate
at that time. Please don't schedule another activity for a time immediately following your installation time
though, because several factors can cause the install time to be longer than my estimate. I do not do a
"rush job" for anyone, and I believe that everyone's installation deserves my very best and time
restrictions prevent that from happening. And sometimes I do run late (because sometimes complications
occur), especially if you are my second appointment of the day, although I will call you and let you know if
it will be a significant delay.

Q. How Many installs will you schedule for yourself in one day?

A. Usually no more than TWO. But even that depends, if I have commercial work in the mix for the day, I
may only schedule one depending on the scope of my commercial installations. Be assured I will allow
your installation plenty of time to get it done right.

Q. I live up in northern climate, does snow cause problems with satellite reception and the
ability of my system to function properly?

A. It sure does! But, there are ways to manage the problem. Like rain, snow is moisture falling through
the air (it just happens to be frozen). Like rain, while it is light it will not likely interfere with your signal,
although the heavier the precipitation falls the more likely it is that your signal will be degraded. Wait
there's more.... Unlike rain, snow collects and freezes to surfaces. Your aluminum dish will take the
temperature of the surrounding air faster than most other non-metallic surfaces, thus causing snow to
build up on it faster, and freeze to it harder. This collecting of snow will cause your system to lose signal.
Sometimes you can simply brush the snow off and the system will again work fine. Other times you will
have to work harder to get the ice off. Windshield de-icers work fine (the kind you get from an auto parts
store in a spray can) as do most liquid de-icers. I recommend that you only apply the de-icers to the DISH
portion of your antenna ONLY. You will need to de-ice the feed horn section of your TRIA by hand
(chemicals could harm this portion). For my airplane, I buy a few gallons of aircraft de-icer and put it into
a garden sprayer, and when needed I am able to spray down the airplane fairly easily (I have used this
method for de-icing commercial dish antennas as well). If you live in a frequent snow region, consider a
lower mounting height, or a pole mount as this will allow you easy access to clean off your dish (it sure
beats climbing onto a snowy roof).