motor recommendations for 1.2?

[B.J.]

B.J.

I have been using the DG380 motor with my 1.2 M GeoSatPro dish for a long time now and it works really well.

RADAR

What size motor shaft are you using? I was looking at some of the pictures of some of the dishes and motors, and some of them were using those 55mm (I think) shafts that have the sort of knob at the end, and it seems like in some of those motor mounts that knob would get in the way of the tube lying flat in the mount. I'm not sure if the GeoSat was one like that or not, but I do remember it having bolts that look like they stuck out so far that they'd bump into the motor when it turned... although I figured I could cut them off.

I've almost talked myself out of the 1.2 meter, and am thinking that maybe this is the time to try to talk my wife into letting me replace my BUD. The darn thing has jammed every time I've taken it further west than the Mexican sats. It seems to have a rough spot on the gears, and I can't get past one location without it jamming. Last time I had to take a car battery charger out there and hook it up to the motor wires while pushing on the dish to get it back up. Wasn't any fun it 90+ weather. But if she'll let me replace the old Orbitron with something that can get Ku, then I won't need the extra gain on the Ku dish, as I can tune the difficult transponders with the BUD. She's said that as long as I don't increase the total number of dishes that's she's OK with with me getting new dishes, but I'm not sure she meant anothe BUD. I think she was hoping that it would go away and be replaced by the smaller dishes.

I'd also like to change the location of my BUD. Currently, my Orbitron is right underneath an 18,000V power line (and the transformer is right in line with a couple sats around AMC18), and there are big 100' trees tilting over the line. If one of those trees comes down, and pulls down the power line onto my dish, I don't want to think of the sparks that would come out of all my receivers inside. When I put the dish up, it was the only place on my 40Ac property where I could see most of the arc, but now a bunch of trees have grown up blocking half of the arc I could see, and I've removed a bunch of trees that now makes another location better. Anyway, I can't decide what to do now.

 

[1captain]

Hi B.J.

I have 2 move-able ku dishes, a 90cm and a 1.8-meter Channel Master. now on the 90cm it is a old Eagle dish it is a very heavy but solid built, the motor that is on it is a Pansat-900 it has been running it since late 2004, before then had a SG-2100 on it and it did not last a year before the gears got strip out. I am down in Fl. on the coast and in 2004 we had 3 hurricans here with some pretty stout winds, and the SG could not take it, but the Pansat has lasted with much better performance threw out the years also has made it threw several tropical storms here too, more than what the SG went threw.

2nd thought for you, if you replace you're 10-footer you may want to repair the Ajak and fab it on a bigger Ku dish like I did my 1.8 here. their has never been a feed that the 1.8 could not lock, and before the 1.8 went up I had a 1.2 on the same mount, and when I set it up I was shocked just how much more signal that the 1.8m produced over the 1.2m.

I uploaded a few pictures 1, 2, and 3 are of the Eagle 90cm, had to make a bushing for it to fit on the motor, this dish take a 2 3/8" O.D. pipe. picture 4 and 5 are of the 1.8-meter on a HTS horizon mount, now the reason why I chose this mount is it has a full round gear not like most horizon mounts that only have a 1/2-moon spur gear like you're Ajak motor, so it will let you get a dish real low on the horizon.

Good luck B.J. it is bad when you have 2 seperate dish systems that have problem at the same time.

 

[AcWxRadar]

What size motor shaft are you using? I was looking at some of the pictures of some of the dishes and motors, and some of them were using those 55mm (I think) shafts that have the sort of knob at the end, and it seems like in some of those motor mounts that knob would get in the way of the tube lying flat in the mount. I'm not sure if the GeoSat was one like that or not, but I do remember it having bolts that look like they stuck out so far that they'd bump into the motor when it turned... although I figured I could cut them off.

B.J.

The motor tube with the DG380 I am using is a 55mm. It does have a lip on the end, but it works fine with the GeoSatPro antenna. Check out this thread I posted back in '06:

http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=176180&highlight=acwxradar

RADAR

 

[B.J.]

Just an update.
Well despite all the good responses I got, I decided not to get a 1.2M. Instead, I struck the deal with my wife to get a new BUD to replace my old Orbitron. So I ordered a new 10' SAMI. If it works as good as the SAMI I used to own, it should get Ku fine, so I won't need the 1.2. Part of the deal was that in addition to taking down the Orbitron, I'll also take down my 6' dish that I haven't used much at all, since it was all warped too. And I'm also going to take down my 90CM Fortec, and move it on top of our garage where I was going to put the 1.2M.

I was HOPING to be able to find a new piece of 3" Sched 40 pipe to mount the SAMI on, so that I can put up the new dish before taking down the old one. But I've looked all over, and found one local place that will sell me a 21' piece for $370! Also found a place that's about an hour's drive each way, that will sell it for $230, but since the pipe for my first dish only cost me about $30 new, I can't convince myself to spend that much for a piece of pipe, so I'm going to try pull the old pipe, along with the concrete and all, out of the ground, and move it to where I'm putting the new dish. I can't leave it where it is, both because of the 18,000 V power lines I mentioned above, but also, because the trees have grown up, and pretty much blocked a large portion of the arc that the old location can see, whereas if I move the dish about 30' to the right, it will give me a year round view of several sats that I can only now see in the winter.

So my problem now, is to somehow get that darn pipe out of the ground. I have a small backhoe, so I think I can dig all around it, and then lift it out with the front end loader..... hopefully. I just hope that the concrete isn't too attached to the big rocks in the ground. I may have to rent a jack hammer to chip some of the concrete away.
But assuming I can get it out, I figher I'll just dig a hole a bit bigger than the concrete ball, re-plant the thing, and pour more concrete around it to anchor it into the ground. Anyway, that's the plan. The new dish was supposed to come possibly today, but it's not here yet, so it probably won't be here before Monday. I don't want to take the old one down until I know the new one is here. Anyway, hope this works. Hoping to get the old one down, and new one up between NFL sundays, so as not to miss any games.
I've taken a picture of the "before", and will take some more pictures as dishes come down and go up.
One other issue is that my new location is another 30' or so further out, and I don't think I have enough extra length in my ribbon cable to reach the new location, so I'll probably have to splice a 30' length of cable to the old. Have to figure out a way to waterproof the splice.