hi, got a few questions from a noob

[Dee_Ann]

I painted one of mine purple, for a joke lol. Post#16 in this thread:
http://www.satelliteguys.us/fta-shack/174035-everybody-wants-one.html

Its a thought, haha.........

Awwww... That's so cute!

Actually I thought about painting one pink but that would really stand out and the neighbors might not care for it. My house is pink already. I was thinking HOT pink though. But to keep peace in the neighborhood I think I will go with a giant sunflower. I saw where someone attached big petals to it to make it look really nice.

 

[Anole]

we can make magic out of your junk:

Some of the dishes you discount, are actually highly desirable in our community.
The elliptical 1.0x0.7 dish is 1 meter wide (about 39 inches) by 0.7 meters (about 27 inches) tall.
That's a keeper! (possible for motorizing)

The 4' Channel master is 1.2 meters, and roughly round.
Yea, a little taller than wide, but a -highly- desirable dish for Ku band!
That's either serious trading material or a keeper!

Getting it rigged up and locating the three LNB support struts and LNB holder might seem difficult, but whether you have them, you make them, or you order replacements, THAT dish would be a killer on the DG380 motor I mentioned, above!
Everyone here would stand up and salute, if you got that going!


By all means, do proceed with your efforts to get Whitesprings.
But, here is how I did it with some otherwise junk parts, a while back.
You may have similar parts on hand, and be able to use them instead of some of your better dishes.
Just something to think about.
The folks here are always coming up with simple ways to solve complicated problems.


Now, looking ahead, here is an FAQ on switches.
When you are relaxed, take a tour, and if you have questions, we can help.
It'll show you how you can connect several LNBs on one or multiple dishes to one or more receivers.
There's also some representative hook-up diagrams for motors.
You could have fixed dishes on several favorite birds, and then use the motor on another dish to check out the rest.
(assuming that's what you would like)
You've already shown the aptitude for getting it all to work!

 

[Tron]

If you have plenty of room, by all means consider setting up as many of those nice Channel Master dishes as you can! They make great fixed dishes (pointed at one satellite), but are somewhat heavy for the small H-H FTA motors we use. Good candidates for fixed dishes are AMC-21 at 125w (PBS is now uplinked on that satellite, including the national HD feeds), Galaxy 18 at 123w, AMC-4 at 101w, Galaxy 19 at 97w (that's the satellite where Fashion TV is, as well as about 100 channels containing mostly ethnic programming from countries around the world), and AMC-9 at 83w (for RTN, which you've already found). Fixed dishes can be desirable, since they are always aimed at the same satellite, and switching between them is instantaneous. Moving a dish on a motor from satellite to satellite takes some time. For a motorized system, it is best to use one of the lighter, stamped metal dishes such as Sadoun's Fortec 90cm or SatelliteAV's GeosatPro 90cm.

Concerning your LNB that may need replacement, it is best to use one with a similar C-120 flange mount (the part that has the bolt holes in a circular pattern around the LNB throat, in your first picture). That is a common flange interface, and it would be best to leave the original feedhorn on the dish and replace just the LNB with a similar LNB. Another thing to consider is that it is very rare for LNBs to actually go bad. Chances are there is another problem, such as bad cabling, fittings, etc., that is causing reception problems. This can be a problem down here in the Gulf south (Houston, New Orleans, etc.), as the weather is always very wet and humid, contributing to corrosion. It may be helpful to re-install the LNB and use new cable with fresh fittings to see if your signal returns.

Hope this information helps

 

[Dee_Ann]

Wow! You guys are great!

And inspiring.

I went out with a camera this morning and poked around the yard to see what so called treasures might be lurking about. Like I said, my ex had a habit of picking up just about everything he saw on the side of the road. Not just satellite dishes. Oh joy, the cleaning up I have to do now. Seriously, I was about to throw all this stuff back to the curb again until you all advised me otherwise.

There's stuff scattered all over the place, all shapes and sizes and brands.
There's the remains of that old monster we cut down years ago too. I do not know how big it is for sure but it was BIG. It was a good bit taller than me, I remember that because I helped him roll it when he took it down. I am *not* going to put that horrid thing back up. It broke constantly. It was *not working* far more than it ever did work. No thanks. It's going to the curb.

I found some more of those larger gray dishes and a lot of the small ones that say dishnet and directv. After every hurricane you can see oodles of them thrown out to the curb. It was so embarassing, he had no shame, he would stop, jump out and throw them in the trunk and grin like a possum. I kept telling him to stop, enough was enough but I think he has some addiction to collecting junk. And really, he would pick up *anything* especially ceiling fans and TV's.. He would clean them up and give them away. I do have to admit though, we haven't had to purchase a ceiling fan in years. And there's one in every room, even the garage. Sheesh...

Ok, so anyway, I do not know where all the parts are for these things.
I found a few of the tubes that go to the bigger one (the one by the old sink) but it looks like one or more are missing. And I do not see the parts that go on the back of it. I have a pretty good idea of what it's supposed to look like from looking at others and from photos on here of others. As a matter of fact, I think it is the same as the purple one that "turbosat" has in his thread, "Everybody wants one"

I remember when the ex picked it up, he was all giggly over it. I was not too happy.
He picked it up like 10 years ago and never did anything with it. It sat around with all the other junk all these years.

I took some pictures of the stuff and am attaching them, maybe you guys can tell what the stuff is and what can be done with it, if anything. As far as the stuff being valuable, heh, ok, if you say so. I'll have to take your word on that. So for now that stuff got a second chance, saved from the trash pile, again..

One thing I have learned is that there are a lot of satellites with stuff I would like to see but in a lot of cases, there is only one channel on the whole satellite that's worth watching. And since I only speak English, that limits a lot what I might be able to watch. So sprinkling the yard with gobs of these horrid, ugly little things just really turns me off. Put up one for each channel? Um, I don't think so.

For now I can put up with 3-4 of them, that's what he had out there anyway. I got sick of looking at it and took several smaller ones down. I really would like to get a single dish that moves around so I can check out all the different things. They are just too ugly. I'm trying to clean the place up, I used to be gone a lot and didn't worry too much about the clutter but now it's time for it to go.. I would like to have a pretty yard again.

Thanks again guys, you all are super!

 

[turbosat]

Holy Cow a dish flea-market!! When are ya open?
Too bad its so far away from me , haha.

edit:
A motorized dish would be your answer, to ease of use. They even have lnbfs with multiple outputs now, so you could run tvs in more than one room if you wanted. Of course, with one dish they'll all be watching the same satellite but can select diff channels.

 

[osu1991]

She could open shop there.
The second to last picture is the lnb and feedhorn for the Channelmaster 1.0 meter dish. I'm sure someone would be interested in the CoRotor and the mesh panels and mounting ring from the big dish too.

 

[Anole]

satellite warehouse:

I see that your ex had quite the eye for the good stuff.
All those molded commercial dishes with the ribs on the back side, are very desirable.
The smaller metal dishes are probably Dish Network and DirecTV, the two main pay TV satellite providers.
Their equipment isn't totally useless, but would be a distant second for your uses.

Since you don't want to put up too many, let us walk you through picking the best for your needs.
Then (in a few months), please share the left overs with some of the forum members.
I'm sure you can get free labor to haul away whatever remains.
Some of us might even have you ship a few of the smaller items.

But first things first:
- show us more,
- decide what you want to put up,
- pick the best,
- install, and
- view.

#1): tops on my list would be a round 1.0 meter ChannelMaster molded dish.
You have the LNB, the dish, and probably the 3 LNB support struts.
I'd make that my choice for a motorized dish.
Just need to find/make some bracketry for the back side, to hook it to the motor.
Been done many times on the forum, so there will be many threads and pictures to go by.

#2): That dish with the 1.0x0.7 markings, is a favorite with the members.
It's got one wide LNB support at the bottom of the dish
Often, we put multiple LNBs on 'em, to get two satellites.
Just check the first post of this thread and look at the pictures by Linuxman, for a clue how easy it is.
We won't get into all the details right now, but there are two considerations:
- the two chosen satellites have to be near each other in the sky, 'cause the LNBs need to be fairly close to the center focal point
- the two satellites can't be so close together that the LNBs interfere with each other.

#3): I hate to not put this higher on the wish list, but that 1.2 meter (four foot) molded dish you have is hot stuff.
The down side is that it's heavy, and would be more trouble to get set up.
For most of us, it'd be the first one we grabbed and drooled over.
Keep at least one through the end of the year, no matter what.
You might decide you have a use for it later. -

 

[Dee_Ann]

LOL!!

I find it funny that all this junk seems to be "desired".. LOL!!!

But, if you say so. And by the way, there is more. We have (well it's mine now) a piece of property that has a *bunch* of those monster satellite dishes. Stacks of them.
He was going to do some solar thing with them as I recall and was picking them up for free all the time. I think there is about a dozen or so on the lot. One of them is so huge that I dare not even guess at it's size. I know that it's well over twice as tall as me and I'm 5' 6".. You would have to use a long ladder to touch the top of it.

I was going to pay some teens to cut them up and haul them off, I need to sell the lot.
I don't have any pictures of them though, sorry guys..

There are more of the smaller ones here too and a box full of the lnb things that go on the ends.

Maybe my dad can make some of the missing parts for me, he's pretty good at fixing things. I guess I got a little of my dad going on, I can do minor car repairs as long as it's not changing a tire. I even put the air conditioner stuff in to make it cold. Heh, that's easy. It's really more about having the tools though, which I don't really have many. The ex took the tools when he left. He left me just enough tools to drive nails and fix stuck drawers.

Anyway....

So I guess I should hold off on tossing anything away for now. I was going to try to get the White Springs satellite, I think it's 129? but it's pouring down rain today so I guess it will have to wait.

Maybe this could turn into something fun. I do like fixing things myself and really, if I can keep things out of the dump, that's a plus. Who would have ever known all that old junk was useful??

Thanks guys, y'all rock!

 

[Dee_Ann]

I see that your ex had quite the eye for the good stuff.
All those molded commercial dishes with the ribs on the back side, are very desirable.
The smaller metal dishes are probably Dish Network and DirecTV, the two main pay TV satellite providers.
Their equipment isn't totally useless, but would be a distant second for your uses.

Since you don't want to put up too many, let us walk you through picking the best for your needs.
Then (in a few months), please share the left overs with some of the forum members.
I'm sure you can get free labor to haul away whatever remains.
Some of us might even have you ship a few of the smaller items.

But first things first:
- show us more,
- decide what you want to put up,
- pick the best,
- install, and
- view.

#1): tops on my list would be a round 1.0 meter ChannelMaster molded dish.
You have the LNB, the dish, and probably the 3 LNB support struts.
I'd make that my choice for a motorized dish.
Just need to find/make some bracketry for the back side, to hook it to the motor.
Been done many times on the forum, so there will be many threads and pictures to go by.

#2): That dish with the 1.0x0.7 markings, is a favorite with the members.
It's got one wide LNB support at the bottom of the dish
Often, we put multiple LNBs on 'em, to get two satellites.
Just check the first post of this thread and look at the pictures by Linuxman, for a clue how easy it is.
We won't get into all the details right now, but there are two considerations:
- the two chosen satellites have to be near each other in the sky, 'cause the LNBs need to be fairly close to the center focal point
- the two satellites can't be so close together that the LNBs interfere with each other.

#3): I hate to not put this higher on the wish list, but that 1.2 meter (four foot) molded dish you have is hot stuff.
The down side is that it's heavy, and would be more trouble to get set up.
For most of us, it'd be the first one we grabbed and drooled over.
Keep at least one through the end of the year, no matter what.
You might decide you have a use for it later. -

Hi again. Hope I'm not being a pest but I'm still not clear on things.

Which one is #3? a 1.2 meter ?? I guess I need to label those things so I can easily tell which one is what.

I took some more pictures of the internet satellites, the ones that say direcway.
One says Direc PC 6 and one says Direc PC 5
Both are the same size, I used a tape measure, I think they are like 23" tall and 40" wide.

The last picture came out badly, I must have pushed something on the camera, it has buttons all over it and it beeps at me everytime I touch it.

Oh and it quit raining so I may go out and try to setup that one for White Springs, I like the shows they have lined up.

Thanks again so much!

 

[Anole]

I was saying #1, #2, and #3 in desirability, not in order of your pictures.
You have plenty of good stuff to work with.
The DirecWay dishes will get single birds just fine.
Thanks in part to them being wide , which helps reject the adjacent satellite.
You can also mount two LNBs on them, and should be able to receive two satellites pretty much like the pictures I linked above (which uses dishes similar to your 1.0x0.7m dish).

edit:
check out these recent pictures for encouragement! -


As for the barn full of BUDs...! - - We need pictures!
Solar cookers, my big green lizard tail!
If you by chance have any Birdview dishes, we'll have someone over there in no time to haul 'em off!
As for many other big dishes you might have, I'm sure we can get them hauled away for you, too!

 

[jmc98]

dee_ann sent you a pm about the mesh bud would be willing to take the dish off your hands if you want to get rid of it

 

[Tron]

We have (well it's mine now) a piece of property that has a *bunch* of those monster satellite dishes. Stacks of them.

I was going to pay some teens to cut them up and haul them off, I need to sell the lot.

Did you say C-C-CUT them up?! How much do you want for the lot (with the dishes intact)???

So sprinkling the yard with gobs of these horrid, ugly little things just really turns me off.

I will gladly help you take those horrid, ugly little things out of your life if you want

Tron wonders how much it would cost to rent a BIG U-Haul truck for a day...

Seriously.

Okay, maybe two....

Trucks, not days. Houston is not THAT far from New Orleans...

 

[Dee_Ann]

well before everyone gets all excited, let me go take a look at the property and see what the conditions are out there. I haven't been out there in over a year and the last time I went it's literally a jungle. There are several collapsed buildings out there, blown down by hurricanes and it's a death trap. Not to mention, mosquitos and snakes.

Those old things out there have been there at least 15 years as best as I recall.
My ex was going to put shiny plastic on them and use them to heat up water for an outdoor jacuzzi.

I'll get over there and get some photos. I wouldn't get too worked up, it's probably all rusted away by now. We shall see.

In other news. My neighbor gave me a little gadget that says "satellite finder" on it.
He showed me how to use it too. He put two square batteries on it with some clippy wires to run it. Apparently you hook it to the satellite dish and move the dish around until it squeals. Then you turn the knob down on it and and move the dish some more till it squeals again, over and over. That's supposed to be aiming it.

I tried to find the White Springs 129 satellite with it and it squeals when I point it in the right direction but the tuner can't find it. I guess that home made dish I made from parts yesterday is not good. My neighbor looked it over and he said it looks good and doesn't know why it won't work. The finder is squealing so he says that it's aimed at something for darn sure but why the tuner won't see anything is a mystery.

He said I am better off waiting until that part comes in to fix the internet dish, the one that says direcway on it than try to use the home made ones.

Well, can't win them all I guess.

 

[gabshere]

here's another way to tune a dish
with the tv & receiver out at the dish ( and the receiver is already tuned to the transponder of the channel your hunting for, then move the dish is small movements slowly giving it a few seconds between each move for the receiver to catch up and show the readings)

the lil satellite finder is great for locating signals but i don't really know how accurate they are , some signals woill bloow the doors of that meter and other signals are lower powered and might be harder to locate. but half the fun is hunting the signal and other half is finding the feeds after your setup .

since you know the general direction of the satellite you want to get you only have to move the dish a inch or two each way before adjusting the elevation and trying again.


another thing about stationary dishes over motorized dishes
is that stationary dishes don't move so when you have several together that enables instant channel changes. also if you equip those dishes with a dual lnbf then this allows you to feed several receivers at once with multiple satellites.

 

[turbosat]

DeeAnn a lot of receivers won't see that WhiteSprings TV signal because it has a low symbol rate.....so if you can figure it out on your rec>manually add the satellite/channel. If it already has that satellite in it, check its transponder list to see if Whitesprings' transponder is there, if not , try to add it. 11964horizontal symbol rate is 2920. Then put your box on that tp while you try aiming, and if you find signal strength, try to scan it.

 

[melgarga]

You are killing me girlfiend!...............lol
100 mi east put you closer to the Golden Triangle area. As has been suggested, you should prolly take a photo inventory of your resources, and let's pick you the cream of the crop for a station and as turbosat said flea market the rest to anyone else interested. As you can tell that shouldnt be a problem.
Unless your off site inventory has a complete setup, this piece-
http://www.satelliteguys.us/attachment.php?attachmentid=38009&d=1243185436
I would say hang on to, along with the mesh dish it went with, for at least a year to see if you are interested in 'upgrading' [motorized C and Ku feed]
If you insist on tossing it out, please allow me send you an addy label and ~10-12 bucks to go to the Post Office and get a box to toss it into.
One thing we havent heard about is if your ex dragged in any noteworthy satellite receivers. If you posted what you are using for DVB FTA, I missed it. The interesting question to pose is did he collect anything with a logo of 4DTV (General Instruments or Motorola brand) or one that says Digicipher II or PowerVu?
A note of warning, if you mention cutting up or or scrapping those Beautiful Useful Dishes again, you may be single handedly responsible for the spike in stroke recovery and CCU services across the nation!.........lol
Seriously, if your not in a rush, there may be some of the guys that would make the trip to save those ol' gals from the boneyard.
You keep saying never again for a big dish. Your a tinkerer, I say ....We'll see..........I can see your pic infront of your 10 footer on the cover of PE, captioned "I did it all by my self"

 

[Dee_Ann]

hmmm..

Me thinks me has trading materials.

Maybe I can trade some of these clunkers and move up to a nice little compact moveable one.

Time for reflection. And inventory.

 

[jmc98]

Dee what would it take for me to get the mesh panels and mounting ring would be willing to trade (i have a 90cm dish 2 standard lnbs all that's needed for that is a lnb holder)

 

[AcWxRadar]

LOL!!

I find it funny that all this junk seems to be "desired".. LOL!!!

But, if you say so. And by the way, there is more. We have (well it's mine now) a piece of property that has a *bunch* of those monster satellite dishes. Stacks of them.
He was going to do some solar thing with them as I recall and was picking them up for free all the time. I think there is about a dozen or so on the lot. One of them is so huge that I dare not even guess at it's size. I know that it's well over twice as tall as me and I'm 5' 6".. You would have to use a long ladder to touch the top of it.

I was going to pay some teens to cut them up and haul them off, I need to sell the lot.
I don't have any pictures of them though, sorry guys..

There are more of the smaller ones here too and a box full of the lnb things that go on the ends.

Maybe my dad can make some of the missing parts for me, he's pretty good at fixing things. I guess I got a little of my dad going on, I can do minor car repairs as long as it's not changing a tire. I even put the air conditioner stuff in to make it cold. Heh, that's easy. It's really more about having the tools though, which I don't really have many. The ex took the tools when he left. He left me just enough tools to drive nails and fix stuck drawers.

Anyway....

So I guess I should hold off on tossing anything away for now. I was going to try to get the White Springs satellite, I think it's 129? but it's pouring down rain today so I guess it will have to wait.

Maybe this could turn into something fun. I do like fixing things myself and really, if I can keep things out of the dump, that's a plus. Who would have ever known all that old junk was useful??

Thanks guys, y'all rock!

Dee_Ann,

Will you marry me?

Just kiddin' around of course, but you are really smart and good with this hobby! With all the spare parts and dishes you have, we could have a lot of fun! I wish I were your neighbor!

I use several of the same dish antennas that you have provided the pix of (the ones which are a fiberglass or composite construction and have the rib matrix in the back of the dish). Either the older Channel Master or Primestar models. These dish antennas are very much keepers!

I would like to submit a suggestion to you that I think you might appreciate. First, I will have to give some background information.

My brother and I have been experimenting with C-Band reception on smaller dish antennas than are normally recommended. We were trying a 1 meter Winegard dish and we actually had some very good luck using a homemade scalar ring and a BSC621-2 LNBF. We have recently ordered some 1.2 meter GeoSatPro antennas from one of our sponsors, SatelliteAV. I am expecting them to arrive soon. We believe that we will be able to receive quite a few C-Band FTA channels with this new dish and at least improve our reception of other Ku-Band FTA channels.

Since you were rather staunch about not setting up another BUD, I wanted to mention that this might be a possibility so that you can get more FTA channels overall.

We are going to be using the Sadoun PowerTech DG-380 motor with this GeoSatPro 1.2 M dish from SatelliteAV and the BSC621-2 LNBF and a purchased scalar ring (instead of my brother's homemade one).

If it works exceptionally, we will let you know what the overall results are. Since you are so avid and interested in the FTA hobby, I thought you might like to know about this possibility. It might provide you with something to ponder before you start buying anything new. If you can obtain a substantial number of FTA channels from C-Band by doing this, you might really appreciate the results.

We are hoping that it will make us happy. We will be posting our results, so look for this in the near future.

It does sound like you have a lot of used equipment that will keep you busy and entertained for quite a while. I hope you enjoy it very much! It is definitely a lot of fun just for the sheer notion that you can do it yourself.

EDIT: Dee, don't forget to check out the sticky for entering the contest from Sadoun to win a new DG-380 motor!

RADAR

 

[melgarga]

hmmm..

Me thinks me has trading materials.

Maybe I can trade some of these clunkers and move up to a nice little compact moveable one.

Time for reflection. And inventory.

Now that's the hobbyist spirit we like to see. Part of the fun is the horse tradin' and scrounging............maybe it's a guy thing, I dunno.
Anyway, I have another suggestion for your 'online catalog' when you get to that point. Look for a proggy to reduce and compress your jpgs. I've had good luck with a proggy, that's on my off line comp, I'll have to look but I think it's called Advanced Jpeg Compressor (Ver.5)
After a resize and re-compress, a 2~3 meg file is reduced to >100k with virtually no visible loss in detail, unless zoomed beyond about 350%. It is an awsome image editing app, best I've used.
I've got some trading material as well, as soon as you have in mind what you need to set up your station, we'll sit down and compare notes.
I've still got this image of you standing in front of a 10' Sami that is diguised as a giant sunflower, and the LNB cover has some costume angel wings and pipe cleaners stuck to it and it is painted in black and yellow stripes..........yeah, I know, it's a girl thing.....lol