Last night's storm

[pacificrim]

My new 10ft KTI fitted on the smaller mount made it through 9 hours of 50-70mph winds last night. It could have gone sideways as the elevation nut was mostly unwound this morning from the constant beating. At 49deg north there's not much thread left on the elevation adjustment. I've never tightened them much beyond finger tight before - but watching it get hit last night from my front window, I'm really not too surprised it unwound - it was really jolting from gusts. Anyway, I'm glad to see it in the same shape as yesterday and not an inside out umbrella or flipped over. I've readjusted and tightened it all now. Lessons learned.

The other KTI 10' model has an additional ring around it and of course this one had a larger diameter ring mount with more connection points, so despite reducing it's strength in more than one way, it held up well. Phew!

 

[wvman]

My new 10ft KTI fitted on the smaller mount made it through 9 hours of 50-70mph winds last night. It could have gone sideways as the elevation nut was mostly unwound this morning from the constant beating. At 49deg north there's not much thread left on the elevation adjustment. I've never tightened them much beyond finger tight before - but watching it get hit last night from my front window, I'm really not too surprised it unwound - it was really jolting from gusts. Anyway, I'm glad to see it in the same shape as yesterday and not an inside out umbrella or flipped over. I've readjusted and tightened it all now. Lessons learned.

The other KTI 10' model has an additional ring around it and of course this one had a larger diameter ring mount with more connection points, so despite reducing it's strength in more than one way, it held up well. Phew!
View attachment 130809

You have the luck of the Irish as they say. I stand on the bolts when I install a used dish, but before I do, I replace all the bolts holding the dish to pole. Don't want those twisting off. I usually replace them with stainless steel bolts to avoid having trouble later if I need to loosen them. Nice to see yours survived the storm. Lord knows what would have happened if the elevation nut had came off. I'm sure the results would have been much worse.

 

[pacificrim]

I shouldn't have said finger tight - hand tight, but certainly not tightened jamming my foot into it and turning blue - anyway, I'm not surprised this thing survived that fact that these things are 30+ years old and look new pretty much says how good they made 'em back then.

I have all new stainless hardware in the mount - which I rebuilt and it came out perfect - and my new dish is all new stainless as well - but having a greased and clean thread and and just done all the adjustments - but just not locked down the elevation - it is amazing how much of a beating it takes and how things come undone in our world.

The first storm started Wednesday or Thursday and brought 70ft seas to the coast. Saturday was crazy.

 

[wvman]

The wind load on a dish is high, especially when it's a 10 footer. We don't have those kinds of winds here all that often, but even being down in a valley between 4 mountions, we still get it pretty hard at times. I've had it blow siding loose on the house and had shingles blown off the roof a time or two. Our house was built in the 50's and it will creak and crack when the wind's high.

 

[pacificrim]

Here's the elevation adjuster. Not much thread left. No idea how these would have been installed up north, unless if it wasn't motorized then you could crank the elevation and drop the declination.

 

[waylew]

No idea how these would have been installed up north

Move something,make custom or possibly an optional longer one was available.
And you really should bind the nuts against the sleeve to lock them,with wrenches.Blue torque isn't needed,just tight.

 

[Horsepower]

Depends on where you are. Canada is WAY up north to a lot of people.

 

[wvman]

Here's the elevation adjuster. Not much thread left. No idea how these would have been installed up north, unless if it wasn't motorized then you could crank the elevation and drop the declination.
View attachment 130936

it doesn't take a lot of vibration to walk a nut down a rod, especially when it's nearly vertical. A lot of the vibration caused by wind blowing across an object isn't audible, but it can be enough to move a nut a little at a time until it eventually goes off the end of the threads. I get a little over zealous when I tighten nuts, but so far, I've never had one come loose. In applications where it requires something to be at a certain point, I use lock nuts.

When I do, I only use the ones with nylon inserts rather than the nuts with indentations in the threads. They damage the threads. I'm glad yours didn't work its way off the end of the rod. It could have done a lot of damage flopping up and down in the wind.