Where the satellite actually is
DStv is carried on a geostationary satellite parked over the equator. From the Cape Peninsula it sits roughly to the north-east and only about a quarter of the way up the sky — somewhere near 25 degrees above the horizon. That low elevation is the single most important fact about installing in Simon's Town, and it is why local geography matters so much more here than it would in Gauteng, where the same satellite sits much higher overhead.
At 25 degrees, the signal path skims across the landscape rather than dropping down onto your roof. Anything in that narrow corridor — a neighbour's roofline, a mature milkwood, a garden wall on a raised terrace — sits directly in the beam. Move the dish two metres sideways and the obstruction can disappear entirely. That is the whole job: finding the two metres that work.
The mountain is usually not the problem
People assume the ridge above Simon's Town is what blocks their signal. Usually it is not. The mountain rises to the west and south-west of the town, while the satellite sits to the north-east, out over False Bay. For most properties in the town itself, the mountain is behind the dish rather than in front of it.
The genuine signal shadows in this area come from closer, lower obstructions:
- Mature trees. Milkwoods and old pines are the number one cause of marginal signal on the False Bay coast. Worse, foliage attenuates the signal seasonally and in wet weather — which is why a system that worked in February starts failing in July.
- Neighbouring rooflines to the north-east. On the tightly packed lots along the historic mile and around the harbour, the house next door frequently sits squarely in the path.
- Valley and kloof properties. Homes tucked into the folds of Murdock Valley, upper Glencairn or the Red Hill side can have the north-eastern horizon raised by the ground itself.
- Your own building. On double-storey homes, and on the seaward side of properties that step down the slope, the house blocks its own dish position. This is extremely common on the stepped plots above the main road.
The practical test: stand where you want the dish, face roughly north-east, and look about a quarter of the way up the sky. If you can see clear sky in that direction, a dish will almost certainly work there. If you are looking at a tree, a wall or a roof, it will not — no matter how open the rest of the sky is.
How we find a line of sight
On site we work through it in order. First we establish the true bearing and elevation to the satellite for that address. Then we walk the property and check candidate positions against that line — roof edges, gable ends, the north-east corner walls, and the garage or outbuilding roof, which is a surprisingly good option on sloped Simon's Town plots.
Once a position looks viable, we mount and peak the dish on a professional signal meter, measuring not just signal strength but quality across several transponders. Strength alone is misleading: a dish can show a healthy strength reading while the quality figure is far too low to survive weather. We want margin in hand, because in this climate the installation has to keep working when it is raining and blowing hard, not just on a clear afternoon.
What we do when the obvious position fails
Very few properties in this area are genuinely un-installable. What changes is the mounting strategy:
- Raise the dish. A gable mount, chimney mount or extended pole often clears a boundary wall or a single tree.
- Move the dish, not the TV. Almost every difficult install is solved by putting the dish somewhere unexpected — a rear outbuilding, a garage roof, a side courtyard — and running a longer cable back. The cable run is a solvable problem; the line of sight is not.
- Budget the cable run properly. Longer runs cost signal, so a long run needs good quality RG6, clean connectors and enough margin at the dish end. This is exactly where cheap cable causes failures a year later.
- Trim, with permission. Sometimes the answer is a branch. On heritage or protected trees this is not a decision an installer makes for you, and it needs to go through the property owner and, where relevant, the municipality.
Two myths worth clearing up
"A bigger dish will get through the tree." A larger dish collects more signal and helps in genuinely marginal conditions, but it does not see through foliage. If the path is blocked, a bigger dish is a more expensive blocked dish.
"An amplifier will fix a weak signal." An amplifier boosts whatever it is given, including noise. If the problem is at the dish — obstruction, misalignment, a dying LNB — amplifying the result makes no difference to the picture. Fix the front end first.
Getting it right the first time
If you are moving into a Simon's Town property, or if a previous installation has never worked properly in bad weather, the useful thing to do is a site survey before anyone drills a hole. We do this as part of a standard DStv installation, and it is also the first step of any signal troubleshooting callout. If the problem turns out to be alignment rather than obstruction, a realignment visit is usually all that is needed.
Whatever the outcome, you should be told the reason. A good installer can point at the actual obstruction and explain the plan — not just report that "the signal is bad here".