Hooked up my 6' Bud today

[drhydro]

Took a day off today and decided to spend some time playing with my 6' BUD. I leveled the pole, ran an extension cord out to the dish and hooked up a 2700 and sat finder to the lnb.

I didnt bother to hook up the actuator, the old one was toast, and I havent put my spare thompson saginaw on the dish yet. I also havent hooked up the polorator yet.

I loosed the bolts on the mount so i could swing the dish around and figure out where it had been pointed at last. After about 2 minutes of playing around i had a good strong signal on the meter. Not knowing where I was pointing, or what polarity the polarotor was on, I decided to do a blind scan. After scanning I had 4 FTA channels, on fr. 3947 sym 9400.

I checked lyngsat and low and behold, I was on g4 (the sat i wanted that dish pointed at) Signal quality is at 65% without really peaking the dish ( I cant peak skew without the polarotor hooked up. WOOOO HOOOOO.

 

[Mr Tony]

yep. The good feeling when you hit them networks

Mine right now fluxuate between 72-90 depedning on time of day. I wonder if you can manually move that skew in the LNB without a polorotor

 

[iammike]

I wonder if you can manually move that skew in the LNB without a polorotor

I can move it manually on my Corotor II. I just have to take off the bug cover, and then I can move it with my finger. If there's already a skew motor connected, you'll want to be careful not to force anything though.

Mike

 

[drhydro]

I am pretty sure i can manually tune skew by removing the servo motor, turning the pickup probe to proper skew (using the plastic piece on the back of the feedhorn that the servomotor hooks onto) and then securing the pickup in place with a piece of mcgiver tape

 

[Shawn95GT]

Very cool!

My 5' dish did WAY better on c-band than I had expected getting into it. I'm glad to see others having the same experience.

 

[drhydro]

Im am pretty psyched to get the signal that I got, without really peaking the skew. Now to grab some dual RG6 cable and run it from my house to the dish, thats going to be fun.

I thought long and hard about setting up the motor, but the spot I have the dish in has a very limited line of sight, say from f1 to g11. Its just not worth spending the money for the ribbon cable, esp as I would need approx 175'.

Instead I am going to play with hanging multiple LNB's off of the dish and see how that works. The first thing I have to figure out is how to mount the extra LNBS, I am thinking some 1" flat stock and exhaust clamps is a good start. I think I will try for f1 as a start, and see how that works.

 

[dfergie]

Instead of ribbon cable would cat 5 cable work for your project along with the dual RG6?

 

[drhydro]

Cat 5 would work for the polarotor, but I dont think it will carry the current needed to run the actuator. I could be wrong tho, I would love it if someone chimed up and said cat 5 worked for them

 

[dfergie]

Yeah, I have used telephone wire for the polarotor on mine... 14 gauge lamp cord would probably work... (used as temp C-band setup getting my BUD back to life)

 

[drhydro]

I used telephone wire to hook up the polarotor on the 10' BUD when I first set it up, worked great, and I thought about using it here along with 14 guage wire ( I have a bunch of 14 guage).

Since this position has such a limited line of sight, I think I am going to leave it fixed. It will work much better in the setup I am working on, which is a total of 8 lnbs feeding 4 recievers, along with my OTA diplexed in.

After that is all hooked up I am going to try to figure out how to inject signal off of my subbed vc2 module into the whole system.

 

[Mr Tony]

Doc
8 LNB's? I thought you had less that you were combining. What LNB's do you want set up and maybe we can figure out a way to get them hooked up

 

[drhydro]

I am going to end up with a total of 8, i think. If i can hook up more I will lol

2 c band for now 10' bud g10 / g12, 6' BUD at g4, I have a 3rd (f1, g4 or e9 ) to hook up once i figure out how to mount it.
1 ku on 10' BUD (g10)
1 ku on 40" p* (ia7)
1 ku on 76 cm winegard (ia5)
1 ku on my newest acquistion, a 4' p* to put on amc3 , i just have to go over and pick it up saturday, :-D
1 dbs lnb at 119

thats 8 there, and with the way i will have all the fixed dishs i can always hang more lnbs "offset". I think if we look at the original drawing you did here http://www.satelliteguys.us/attachment.php?attachmentid=9028&d=1147371859, i can install some 22khz switches after the 4x4 switchs.

 

[Mr Tony]

you cant add a 22k switch with a 4x4 since there is a 22k switch already built in

But you can add 22k switches to the 3x4's

So if I understand this....lets see

2 c band for now 10' bud g10 / g12, 6' BUD at g4, I have a 3rd (f1, g4 or e9 ) to hook up once i figure out how to mount it.

G4 would be H...

1 ku on 10' BUD (g10)

V

1 ku on 40" p* (ia7)

I assume for StarNet? Theres a H

1 ku on 76 cm winegard (ia5)

could be both

1 ku on my newest acquistion, a 4' p* to put on amc3 , i just have to go over and pick it up saturday, :-D

H

1 dbs lnb at 119

could be both...most audio is on H but the NASA, Angel One, etc are on V

what about the 18" dish at 91? That we could do as V

Let me know what stuff you want on each (H, V or both) and I can try to figuire out something

This sounds like mine right now. I added a Phase II for 91/110 (Nimiq1 & Gol TV) and slapped a KU in the middle for Fox 64 on 101 recently so I have to redo my setup

 

[Mr Tony]

Is the 10 footer your movable one?

 

[drhydro]

you cant add a 22k switch with a 4x4 since there is a 22k switch already built in

Bummer hmmm time to rethink things.

Yes your correct on all counts lol. I am losing the second dbs dish to give up that lnb " slot" to a c/ ku band lnb

 

[Mr Tony]

2 c band for now 10' bud g10 / g12, 6' BUD at g4, I have a 3rd (f1, g4 or e9 ) to hook up once i figure out how to mount it.

I'm confused here....is this 2 C-Band LNB's or a C/KU LNB? 3 dishes total?

 

[drhydro]

Is the 10 footer your movable one?

Yes the 10'r is the movable dish, but i see it mainly fixed on g10 because it gets the best reception on g10, year round. I just have to figure out how to put another c band lnb on one of my dishs to get g12, which is where all of my sub stuff is. I dont think I will be able to put it on the 10'er, but of course i will try lol.

Of course i could just park my dish somewere in between 123 and 125 for a compromise of sq / channels.

 

[drhydro]

I'm confused here....is this 2 C-Band LNB's or a C/KU LNB? 3 dishes total?

total of 3 c band lnbs, on 2 dishes. One of the lnbs is going to be offset, once i figure it all out.

 

[Mr Tony]

does the IA5 dish have a dual or single LNB?

If its single, is that going to be on H only or V only

I just drew it out

 

[drhydro]

That one is a single, so I have to figure out best polarity on that sat for max english channels.