reinforced roof area for satellite dish.

[Jeremy Parrett]

I am removing the satellite dome and replacing it with a  ShawDirect  (Wingard) 75cm Satellite dish.
  Does anyone know if the 2000 Marquis has a reinforced area on the roof for this dish?

[Marty and Suzie Schenck]

Jeremy, I don't know about your Marquis but my 2002 Thunder has a Daytron dish from the factory. Under it where the base mounts to the roof, under the fiberglass is a factory installed piece of 1/2in.x 2ft.x2ft. oriented strand board.
Marty

[Gerald Farris]

Jeremy,  
The satellite dish can be mounted anywhere on the roof where there is clearance. A good sealer, preferable a flow grade sealer, between the satellite dish base plate and the fiberglass roof is all that is needed besides the mounting screws that attach the satellite dish mounting plate to the roof. The sealer will bond the fiberglass roof to the mounting plate.

 If you only need one coax cable for your new dish, I would remove the outdated dome and install the new dish in the same location and use the coax cable to it for the new dish instead of drilling a new hole in the roof and running a new cable. However if the new dish will need two coax cables, you will have to drill a hole for one, so you might as well run two new cables.  

Gerald

[Keith Oliver]

Jeremy:  As Gerald points out, the roof FG is strong.  My old KVH Dome was fastened where there is only a thin layer of FG.  Because I was re-using the existing cable runs, I put my Shaw mounting plate in the center of the circle formerly occupied by the KVH. It seems to be strong enough without any backing.  Definitely needs meeds a bedding compound. NOT silicone!

[William Brosam]

did you guys drill into a cabinet to rerun the cables?

[Gerald Farris]

William,
I drilled into the cabinet that is located above the dash on the right side. Since all of the cabinets above the dash are connected in my coach, that gave me access to everything (cabling and electronics) that was necessary for the installation.

Gerald

[Jeremy Parrett]

Thanks for all the advise. I removed the old Wingard Traveller Dome and cleaned all the goop off the area .I sanded the roof to remove the Dicor elastomeric coatings over the 3 ft X 4 ft area I  needed to mount the 1/8th aluminum plate I was using to reinforce the 1/8th fibreglass roof. The Beaver reinforcing piece is under the near right corner of the aluminum plate.  I could not use this area to mount the dish as the solar panels would have needed moving.
  I gooped the plate to the roof with Sikaflex 5200 and added 53 half inch countersunk stainless screws to hold it down !!!
  Then after drilling 9 mounting holes and marking the outside area of the base unit mounting plate I lifted it off,gooped inside the line with 5200 and set it back on the aluminum plate. After screwing the   base unit down I ran the cables (2...one power and one coax) back along the roof to the same 1/2 inch hole that accesses the area behind the prosine panel above the door. Screwing the cable clamps and the cable access cover plate to the roof with self tapping screw at 8 inch intervals and lots of goop I was ready to mount the dish to the base unit.
That went on  easily and after making the 5 connectors from dish to base unit and connecting the control box and coax to the Shaw receiver I was up and running.
Be careful not to overtork the base unit mounting screws that Wingard provide......I sheared 2 heads off.

[Steve Huber]

Jeremy,
Nice installation! It looks like the dish will interfere with the OTA antenna or is it just the camera angle?
Steve

[Jeremy Parrett]

Hi Steve,
      I have not raised it with the sat dish in use.
   It will be close,but as the dish raises fore and aft before swivelling and the over the air antenna raises forwards I think it would clear if I forgot it was raised and switched the sat dish on.   I will have to try it.  Not !!
      Thanks for the compliments.  It was  a fair amount of work in the hot sun.  Total cost,inlcuding the Wingard unit ,1/8th aluminum plate ,Sikaflex 5200 , 8 ss cable clamps, Dicor white goop and 53 1/2 stainless screws was under $2000.  
   Now we can watch ShawDirect in Mexico and of course,Canada.