Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Operation Satellite Dish

This weekend we finally installed our satellite dish. Back in June 2009 we bought a new apartment, which we moved into in Oct 2009 after refurbishing it completely. One of the first things we did was ask permission to put up our satellite dish - it was turned down in Dec. We then complained that there were already about 5 on the roof, why were we not allowed? So last week Thursday, 3 months later, we finally got written permission. Every Saturday morning Albert has Chinese class 10-12, Friday afternoon he went out and bought a drill, screws, etc to have everything ready for Saturday. As soon as he came home from Chinese, the project started.
It started out really well, first part was to drill a 42 cm long hole from our livingroom and through the facade of the building. That was what we were most worried about, but it went smoothly. We figured the worst part was over now, and went on the roof to put up the satellite dish. And this was where the problems started... We measured out the 4 holes we needed to drill, but when we put the screws in the wall, the hole just got bigger and bigger as the wall slowly crumbled away under his fingers. After 2-3 tries, the screws were so damaged we had to leave the project so Albert could go and buy new screws. Since we sometimes don't think (and since the screws were quite expensive), he only bought 4 new ones. After another 2-3 tries, these screws were useless... Once again, Albert went to the shop, and this time bought 8 new screws. By the time he came back it was dark, so we were on the roof drilling holes using a flashlight. Nothing seemed to want to work, and eventually we gave up. The next morning we tried again, and after a total of 24 holes we finally managed to find a stable place in a wall which faced (more or less) in the right direction. And very surprisingly it only took very few tries to find the channels and get the dish installed correctly. So we now have German TV again, as well as some English news channels. It's wonderful!!

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