Bird-proofing Antennas and Roofs

Not the nicest subject material to be talking about – bird poo on antennas and roofs and what to do about it! It does highlight a problem customers ask about quite frequently and one we can solve very effectively—bird-proofing antennas and roofs.

We recently caught up with Tony one of our South Australian franchisees. Tony looks after our customers in and around Adelaide. He was telling us about an odd but very common problem—bird poo collecting on TV antennas and ruining picture quality!

Unfortunately, antennas act as the perfect perch for birds.
It’s a great spot for birds to gather—since they’re not following any social distancing!

Once they’ve had their catch up and banter, they do what birds do—and poo all over the place. Some of it falls on the roof, a lot of it collects on the antenna.

Over time, the poo starts to collect making the roof (and antenna look untidy). More importantly, the poo starts to affect the antenna. It could lead to corrosion of certain components and can get bad enough to affect signal strength.

I help out customers quite regularly to deal with this problem.
We sort out the problem by using bird-spikes.

Advantage of Bird Spikes

Bird spikes are completely harmless to birdlife.
Birds are smart and avoid coming anywhere near the area where these are installed.
The spikes act as a deterrent to birds alighting on your brand new shiny antenna.
Unless they are very determined, the birds just give up and find an easier perch.

I followed up with a customer recently, about 6 months after I installed the antennas.
“Total success, no more birds on our antenna, all gone next door!”—was their hilarious response!

Bird proofing spikes come in a pack of 10 (500mm strips that can be cut to size) we get them from our National suppliers and they’re available to our technicians Nationally.

It is a bit time consuming attaching the spikes to the antenna and you have to know what you’re doing in order to stay safe while on the roof, not ruin the look of your roof or the antenna, and not adversely affect the antenna signal. The good thing is all our techs are experts and can handle this type of work very confidently.

Like with anything involving wildlife or children, there are no absolute guarantees—bird spikes are as close
as we can get to a fool-proof solution to the bird-poo problem.

I always make sure there are no adverse effects on signal reception.
So I never finish bird-proofing antennas, without measuring signal strength, and quality both with and without spikes.

I love hooking up my Spectrum Analyser to the antenna upon the job completion. The Promax has a ripping CRT display, perfect for real-time frequency analysis). This is the perfect setup to ensure there is no discernible difference to the antenna signal with/without the bird spikes attached.

Love it when a job comes together nicely. 🙂