Dish Discs in Condo Complexes

In a condo complex where there are buildings and each building may have 10 or so condo units... one above and one below and each have a patio or balcony.

What is the FCC ruling/law/? as to where the dish cn be placed. I am fairly certain that it cannot be placed on the common area(on the ground outside) but believe ??? that it s permissable that a dish can be placed in/on the patio but NOT attached to the patio/balcony walls. NOW... what if a tenant/owner wants to reach a certain country and cannot pick up that particular station even if they EXTEND the dish a foot or two ouitside of the patio/balcony.....?

I cannot find anything in the FCC that would allow that tenant/owner to place the dish(even a small one) on the roof or elsewhere.... AND yet it is not fair that that particuilar tenant/owner is not ablse to pick up the news/etc from the country from which they originated...

here is an expanded version of the above including a faq and q&a.
http://www.fcc.gov/guides/over-air-reception-devices-rule

We went through this issue several years ago. Our Covenants initially stated that satellite dishes must be mounted on the rear of the structure and that they were limited to a maximum of 18" across. Then a new resident moved in and scheduled installation of his satellite internet service. At the same time he was going to have some landscaping done so he submitted a plan of action to our Board for review and approval. The Board rejected his plan as it showed his dish which was clearly larger than 18" and in violation of our Covenants.

Within a couple of days we received a call from the gaggle of attorneys at the FCC.They informed us that our Covenants were in violation of Federal law. In a nutshell, no HOA can place any restriction on any dish that is less than one meter across. We argued that his dish was oval and the width was 42" (1.0668m). The FCC stated that it was the equivalent "surface area" of a 1m or less so that it would comply with their regulation. (the precedent had already been established)

So we then had to change our Covenants to comply with the regulation. Like it or not this will be the law of the land. Personally, I was pleased to learn of this as I wanted to install a similar dish a few years prior and was told that it was prohibited. So now I'm able to have HD service!

In your situation, to avoid the physical discrimination of the structure, you might suggest that they contact one of the satellite providers and ask to speak with their business services sales. My parents are in an HOA that did not want to see a separate dish on every roof section so they were able to negotiate a deal with DTV to have them install one dish that feeds the entire complex with very nice pricing.

RogerC4,

You wrote “My parents are in an HOA that did not want to see a separate dish on every roof section so they were able to negotiate a deal with DTV to have them install one dish that feeds the entire complex”

Could you (or anyone else reading) provide additional information on the “set up” of one (1) Dish Antenna for the entire complex? Is the single Dish Antenna, roof/building mounted? Or is it a stand alone, perhaps pole mounted Dish someplace.

We are a Condominium group, that consists of a number of multiple unit buildings, and currently we allow only one (1) antenna per building, mounted on Common Area roof structure, which of course we do not have to allow per FCC and OTARD, that then can be used by any, or all of, Condo Units in that building.

All our buildings are pre-wired for Cable TV, so I am wondering if we could somehow utilize just one (1) antenna to serve multiple buildings. Of course, I can ask any Satellite Dish Installer, but it would be helpful to know beforehand how such a set up might work.

Thank you.

it is possible to use a master dish system to feed multiple buildings depending on their distance from each other but it can get considerably more expensive than just installing a master system on each separate building.

RobertC14,

Thank you for the information, and the diagram illustration.

This is not correct...read the link above. The only place that the HOA cannot regulate, is the EXCLUSIVE USE area of the owner, which mean the patio or balcony, it cannot even protrude one inch, and not attached to the walls.. Everything else the HOA can regulate.