I’m guessing I was pretty hard up for blog topics back in August of 2018 when I published a scathing exposé called “A designer-colored antenna?” In it, you’ll find my thoughts about whether we should start making antennas that are more than the typical white and silver.
In the five years since, precisely no one has taken me up on the challenge of creating antennas whose colors interest people as much as the programming they receive. So much for me changing the world.
Still you have to admit it’s not such a bad idea
One of the well-worn tropes about antennas is that they’re ugly. HOAs have the right to keep you from putting up an antenna that’s larger than 39″ in any direction, and in most cases have the right to force you to put that antenna in a private space like a backyard or terrace that doesn’t face the street. The most commonly given reason for this is that people don’t like antennas. Or, precisely, they don’t like the look of them. They think they’re ugly. I disagree but I’m only one guy.
It seems to me that if you were able to camouflage that antenna somewhat, it wouldn’t be the source of as many complaints. An antenna that was light bluish-gray would blend into the sky when seen from below, for example. Cell phone companies use this philosophy all the time, painting their antennas green to match surrounding foliage or even making the whole tower look like a tree. Maybe if homeowners had this option, HOAs would be more friendly to antennas.
Might not be a bad idea for satellite companies either
Cards on the table, folks. I think there’s no getting around the fact that satellite companies’ user bases have shrunk. DIRECTV is still the country’s largest pay-TV provider with DISH not far behind. But the days when the two companies combined had about 1/4 of the country covered are gone, probably for good.
It seems to me that one way to get people to stay with satellite is to offer them a way to show their pride. Why not offer satellite dishes with images of people’s favorite teams, licensed characters, or whatever? Seems to me that after the summer we’ve had, a Barbie pink satellite dish might just appeal to a few people. Just something to think about.
You could even create peel-and-stick custom images to go on the dish’s reflector. I wouldn’t want to encourage people going up and messing with their dishes too much, but it would be a way to capture a lot of people who already have dishes. You might even get some business from people who canceled satellite service long ago but still had the dish on the roof. Hey, this kind of thinking is just what a shrinking industry needs. At least that’s the way it seems to me.
Still not a great idea to do it yourself though.
If you wanted a custom-colored antenna or dish right now, there’s nothing from stopping you. You could get some paint or hire a sign company to print you a custom sticker. You could take your antenna to a company that does auto wraps and have them do it. I didn’t recommend this five years ago and I don’t recommend it now. Why? Because the truth is that you don’t know what it will do. A shiny wrap, put on an antenna, will almost certainly block signals. Painting a dish might scatter signals away from the LNB. If this sort of thing came from the manufacturers, it would be tested to make sure that nothing affects reception. Unless you have that level of equipment to do the tests yourself, it’s better that you leave that antenna white, gray, silver, or however it was supplied to you.
