NICE AND EASY: What is a mount?

There’s a brief article floating around this blog where I told you about masts. A mast is just another name for a pole. So, then, what’s a mount? Well, if you’re King Arthur, it’s your horse. For everyone else though, it’s a specialized combination of a mast and a bracket. It’s a system that allows you to put something, usually an antenna, on a fixed structure like a building or a tower. And it’s a key part of the system you use to get signals from an outdoor antenna.

A mount is designed to let you put your mast where you want it to. There are two types:

Penetrating mounts

A penetrating mount, like the one you see here, has a bracket that bolts onto your wall, eave, or roof. In most cases it’s the most stable kind of mount, which makes sense considering the big bolts involved. However, there are a lot of times when you don’t want to make big holes, or you can’t. That’s where the other type of mount comes into play.

Penetrating mounts can attach to the side or top of a building. They can connect to a tower or to anything freestanding. The key feature here is that they do penetrate what they’re connected to. In other words they connect either to pre-existing holes or to new ones. Penetrating mounts are the most stable because you’re making a real attachment to something else.

Sometimes, you just can’t do that. For example you may rent the home you’re in and putting big old holes in the walls might be frowned upon. Luckily there are other mounts that can help in that case.

Non-penetrating mounts

A non-penetrating mount is specifically designed to let you put a dish or antenna somewhere without drilling any holes. Some of them have a wide flat base that lets you put cinder blocks on it for stability. This sort of mount is perfect for commercial buildings with largely flat roofs. This sort of roof generally sees water pool in various places unless all the drainage gutters are kept very clean. So, it’s a bad idea to drill holes. The flat base of this mount, when steadied with cinder blocks, can be nearly as stable as a traditional penetrating mount.

Non-penetrating mounts designed for sloped roofs generally fit under the shingles and are held in place by roofing nails. Strictly speaking, they do penetrate something but since they don’t penetrate any more than shingles do, it’s not considered a problem.

Mounts come in all sizes, from tripods to long funny poles that look like elephants’ trunks to tiny stubby ones that let the dish almost sit on the roof. Pick the one that looks best and works best for your situation!

Get the mount of your dreams at Solid Signal

Whether you need something for a commercial building or for home use, you’ll find the widest selection of mounts when you shop the great selection of products at Solid Signal! If you need help, call us at 877-312-4547 or use the chat function on the home page.

About the Author

Stuart Sweet