Echostar dish rescued...

[Jason S]

At this point, all has been great with the 'new' C-band dish... except I haven't really moved it. I've been researching dish actuator controllers and decided to forgo the various V-boxes and purchased the Titanium ASC-1.

Today, the FedEx man delivered the goods....


I'm still waiting on Commscope 8136 ribbon cable to be delivered, so it looks like I won't be doing any work on it the Echostar this weekend.

Additionally, on the way home I decided to stop and ask about another mesh dish I've seen in town. It has a polar mount with motor and plenty of pipe (it's about 8' to 10' to the bottom of the dish), which is what I'm mainly interested in. It is missing half it's mesh and looks to be around 6.5' to 7.5'. The owner said I could have it... Now we just have to coordinate a time to get it.

 

[bpalone]

Well it sounds like you are HOOKED. I think once you get the C band motorized and fine tuned you and the family will be well pleased.

Congratulations on getting it all up and running. Above all, remember to have fun with it all.

 

[FaT Air]

Looking good!

another mesh dish I've seen in town. It has a polar mount with motor and plenty of pipe - It is missing half it's mesh

Personally, I'd be thinking the polar mount could be utilized, via modifications for a 1.2 or 1.8 meter offset ku dish.

 

[Jason S]

Well it sounds like you are HOOKED. I think once you get the C band motorized and fine tuned you and the family will be well pleased.

Congratulations on getting it all up and running. Above all, remember to have fun with it all.

Thank you, it is fun... Especially finding an old dish, refurbishing it and then getting to use it.
I'm afraid you are correct, sir (about being hooked)... I'm also waiting to hear from the city about a 10' mesh c-band I've inquired about. It's obviously been in disuse for a while, since it's staring right into an oak tree.

There is fine tuning to do, but the family has been very well pleased with the current setup (I'm already having trouble getting to watch what I want!)

Looking good!
Personally, I'd be thinking the polar mount could be utilized, via modifications for a 1.2 or 1.8 meter offset ku dish.

Thank you! The polar mount with one of the 1.2m dishes is exactly what I was thinking about. Plus, the pipe and extra parts to have on hand all for free.

 

[pdiddy]

At this point, all has been great with the 'new' C-band dish... except I haven't really moved it. I've been researching dish actuator controllers and decided to forgo the various V-boxes and purchased the Titanium ASC-1.

Today, the FedEx man delivered the goods....
View attachment 103001

I'm still waiting on Commscope 8136 ribbon cable to be delivered, so it looks like I won't be doing any work on it the Echostar this weekend.

Additionally, on the way home I decided to stop and ask about another mesh dish I've seen in town. It has a polar mount with motor and plenty of pipe (it's about 8' to 10' to the bottom of the dish), which is what I'm mainly interested in. It is missing half it's mesh and looks to be around 6.5' to 7.5'. The owner said I could have it... Now we just have to coordinate a time to get it.

Keep everybody posted on how the asc1 works out for you,I went back to the v-box and it works flawlessly.Best $35 bucks I ever spent,bought a couple extra just in case one poops out.Keep us posted.

 

[Jason S]

Keep everybody posted on how the asc1 works out for you,I went back to the v-box and it works flawlessly.Best $35 bucks I ever spent,bought a couple extra just in case one poops out.Keep us posted.

I'll post the setup whenever I get to that point. I hope it'll be sooner than later, but the weather forecasted may delay this (at least for me working on it).

As for today, the UPS man delivered:

It's not a full spool of 8136, but for significantly less than $1/foot I just couldn't pass up on it. There's over 250 feet left on this spool.

And not Echostar or C-band related, but the USPS lady delivered:


Question for the readers: For any of those interested in this 'build', should I post my actuator controller setup to another thread or keep this one going?

 

[pdiddy]

Jason,did you get the system up and running?Dying to hear more than anything how the asc1 is working for you?Keep us posted.

 

[Jason S]

Jason,did you get the system up and running?Dying to hear more than anything how the asc1 is working for you?Keep us posted.

Hopefully soon...

Other than gathering parts and supplies, I haven't made much progress. Inclement weather, seasonal events and other obligations have kept me away from setting this up. About all that I've been able to do is mess around with one of my Ku dishes.

 

[Jason S]

It looks like the ASC1 may not get setup with the Echostar dish after all...

However, it looks like there could be a new post entitled "SAMI dish rescued..."

I had inquired to the city earlier about a dish on a roof (post #64), then was directed to speak to the county about it. The county commissioners had a meeting today and my inquiry was brought up. They decided it wouldn't be worth posting a notice and taking bids. Additionally, I was told I could have 'it' if I were to pay for the time it took the county road & bridge personnel to take it off the roof ('it' being the dish, polar mount, and what I presume to be a NPRM)...

As for the road & bridge personnel, I had to inquire about how much they thought that would cost- especially if it took several hours. I was told the county personnel rate would be $10-15 per hour plus the rate for any use of equipment (e.g., lifting equipment). It should only take two people to remove the dish, plus one guy to lean on the shovel... I would rather do it myself, but being that the dish is on the roof of a county owned building, etc.; I'm going to take their offer and hope they don't muck things up removing the dish.

I was told that county personnel would contact me in a few days, but that with Christmas and New Year coming up it may be after the 1st before they actually take it down.

Attached below is an extremely poor cell phone photo. I could barely make out SAMI on the LNB housing, so I'm presuming it's all SAMI (not just the LNB housing). From what I can see from ground level, there appears to be some minor hail damage. Sorry for the poor photo.

I would be happy to know any additional information from those familiar with SAMI dishes. I don't know the size exactly, but it appears to be over 8' in diameter. The actuator arm appeared to have most of the plating on it still and overall everything looked to be in pretty good shape (at least from the ground)...

 

[FaT Air]

Looks like a SAMI. (Nice dish) Hope they don't 'muck it up' NPRM? sweet!
Don't sweat the hail dents. Should do little degradation on C band (ulnless it's 'massive' hail dent damage) and/but much can be 'massaged' out.

 

[Jason S]

Update on the Echostar progress...

Until now, the coax I was using was a mixture of new and used and laying on top of the ground. I finally had time and decent weather to work on getting some ribbon cable and coax buried. I had previously purchased the partial spool of Commscope 8136 ribbon cable and decided I should also run an additional length of RG-6, since I was at it.

To save digging, I decided to run the cables to my shop, then route them through the shop and then back out to the Echostar dish. Overall length of cable would've been the same either way.

I began Friday, after work, digging a trench to the shop and made good progress until I ran out of light and hit frozen soil. So I used a mattock to open the ground and then watered the trench.

Saturday, after more digging and watering, I was able to finish the trench out to the shop building. The trench didn't go nearly as straight as I would've liked, but it's done... After the trenching, I fished Commscope 8136 ribbon with a RG-6 through the PVC electrical conduit to the shop. (Since moving in last year, the yard has been a work in progress- one of my 'little helpers' thought it needed mowing, in addition to running off with my tools)

Sunday I dug the trench from the shop to the Echostar pad and routed the wiring through the shop. I didn't have enough conduit to finish the job, so pretty much quit early.

Today, I got the remaining supplies I needed to finish the job. Prior to completing the wiring job, I decided I should verify wiring to ensure that what I intended to do would actually work. This is the wiring schematic that I put together:

[GALLERY=media, 42]Sat_dish_wiring by Jason S posted Jan 19, 2015 at 10:05 AM[/GALLERY]

I very much appreciate Titanium (Brian Gohl) for taking the time to verify the coax/switch setup prior to finalizing the wiring.

After all the cable was run, I attached the Power and Sensor wires to the actuator and wired the drain wire on the actuator end. I swapped coax on the 1.2m Ku dish currently on 97W and 103W and ran the cable to the shop, in which the Amiko 4-port switch resides. At the house, I was able to bundle the wires together and make a relatively neat installation into the house. All the wiring fit nicely, but it is very snug in the box with the extra run from the 22khz switch plus the switch itself and the OTA antenna cable.

I was floored whenever I powered on the receiver and switched through the satellites and found that everything was working and all the transponders were at least the same quality, if not better.

There is still some tidying up to do. But now I've got well over half of my "New Year! Any big FTA projects this year?" completed with room to expand.

At this point, I just need to get the ASC1 wired up and programmed...

 

[Jason S]

This may be the final post for the Eshostar rescue...

As I had the ribbon cable run from the house to the dish, I verified continuity before hooking in the ASC1 actuator controller. To do this I connected the two leads for the motor together (in this case red and white wires), as well as the two leads for the sensor wires (brown and orange on my setup):

(Note that the ribbon cable I ran is two strands of RG-6, plus the motor control wires, shielded sensor wires and LNB polarotor control wires)

I then went to the actuator at the dish and verified continuity using a digital and analog meter. Here is the analog meter on the motor power wires:


Here is the analog meter on the sensor wires:


As the wiring to the house (and receiver) tested good. I hooked up two sets of wire jumpers to the motor. One set of jumpers was attached to the motor power wire terminals and one set of jumpers was attached to the motor sensor wire terminals. I didn't take photos of this. However, the motor sensor jumpers ran to the analog meter set on 10 ohm and the motor power jumpers ran to a 18V Milwaukee battery pack.

I hooked up the power wire jumpers to the battery pack and watched the analog meter. It fluctuated slightly, so I slowly connected and disconnected the power to the motor to verify the reed switch was operating.

Once I was satisfied that the reed switch (sensor) was operating, I verified east and west limits and ran the dish to the west limit. Then I attached the ribbon cable wires running to the house and reinstalled the motor cover.

As the motor wiring tests went well, I hooked up the ASC1 into my existing setup. I then began the Diseqc 1.2 setup process...

The setup process entailed running the dish from 139W to 78W and setting satellite positions. The Manhattan receiver apparently communicated well with the ASC1, and as I saved positions the actuator controller prompted that the position was saved. As I had the C-band functioning well, I went ahead and established for future additions.

This is the wiring schematic I have right now, which should accommodate future expansion (including motorizing a Ku dish) and moving some things around:



At this time, I have some tidying up to do with the FTA setup on both the house end and C-band end of things, but here is the final bit of my motorizing process (ASC1 hooked up and working quite well):

Now that I have the 7.5' Echostar/KTI setup and operating well; I have to figure out how, when and where to place the 'new' 10' SAMI...