Satellite man aims to clean up city's dishes

Published on Tuesday 1 April 2003 01:00

A TV engineer has come up with a novel way of hiding unsightly satellite dishes - by disguising them as garden features.

Lee Anderson has set up a business which involves incorporating the metal dishes into plant pots, chimneys, tree trunks, lamps and even garden gnomes.

And the 28-year-old telecommunications engineer from Bonnyrigg believes his design skills could rid the Capital of the eyesores.

Today, he said: "It’s a new idea as far as I am concerned. I design dishes to look like plant pots, chimneys, bushes, tree trunks or whatever the customer wants, to disguise them.

"The options are unlimited really and it works especially well for listed buildings and conservation areas.

"People want to watch all the television channels but they don’t want to see a big ugly dish on the side of their house."

Mr Anderson has been working in the industry for ten years.

Due to demand, he has started up a new company, StealthComs, which concentrates on camouflaging satellites on listed buildings, such as country houses and castles, to ensure compliance with planning regulations and to make sure the dish does not spoil the overall aesthetic of the building.

He uses custom-built dishes, which are much smaller than an average-sized satellite dish. He then uses fibreglass to mould the shape he requires.

He said: "I have imported fake leaves from California because normal artificial leaves have wire in them and that affects the signal.

"I use all kinds of materials, I made a tree trunk from a polystyrene sheet which I have painted and attached moss to make it really blend with the surrounding area. Contrary to what people are told, dishes do not need to be on buildings. There is no reason on this earth why they should be on them.

"What I do is definitely challenging, because every job can be different. I am currently working on an idea for pubs so the satellites can be put in window boxes and therefore hidden."

The company also supplies do-it-yourself "stealth kits" for the public to camouflage their own existing dishes.

He added: "I have been working on a 300-year-old house at the Dalkeith estate, and have designed that dish to look like a bush. I use artificial plants and concrete to weigh the base down if it is in a plant pot."

And he sees his idea taking off. He said: "If you have paid a fortune for a penthouse flat in Edinburgh you don’t want to put a satellite dish on your balcony.

"I thought this business would be a success because of the people I spoke to on a daily basis who told me they didn’t want to see their dish and that it was an eyesore."

Martin Hulse, director of the Cockburn Association, the city’s civic watchdog, said: "We have seen a lot of this in the telecommunications industry where advances in technology have meant things like antennae being disguised.

"It’s very welcome from our point of view, when they are made to look like chimney pots. However, in a conservation area, they will still need planning permission."

Vodafone caused amusement among Stockbridge residents last year when they proposed siting a plastic tree, designed to look like a cypress, to contain mobile phone antenna in Grange Sports Club.

Council planning convener Bob Cairns said: "I’ve heard of similar things with phone masts being disguised as trees. Obviously anything which reduces the impact of satellite dishes on listed buildings would be welcomed."

But he added: "I’m not sure if a garden gnome would be more appealing, though."