Need Suggestions For Stabilizing Pole Mount

[jdmacor]

Hey guys. I had a question about pole stabilization. I am living in Houston now and today has been very windy. I kept getting the "Acquiring Signal" screen, so I took a peek out at my balcony, and my dish was wobbling on its pole. Crap. Well the bottom line is I lost signal for most of the day on my nationals; my locals came in just fine, which maybe has to do with the spotbeam having a larger margin of error for dish pointing? I don't know.

Either way, if this is the problem (I am assuming it is the shaking of the dish; i have two receivers, with the same issue), what can I do to fix it? Currently, the pole is sitting on my balcony (I live in an apartment) in a bucket of concrete. The bucket is filled up 75%. I wanted the damn thing mounted directly onto the railing on a short pole, but my apartment management said that nothing could be fixed to the structure. The installer seemed a little worried, but got out of here without saying a word. Keep in mind, I had this done in early March and this is the first issue I have had with it. I also can't tell if the bucket itself has now been moved or if the pole itself was just wobbling.

Any suggestions?

 

[sca]

sure, if its on your balcony, just go to the point dish screen (menu 6-1-1) lock on a transponder and turn the volume on the tv up. go out there and do a push pull test on the dish. the sound increases in pitch when you move the dish the right direction. so just adjust it to the highest signal.
pole in concrete is not suggested but will work. you can expect to readjust it about twice per year. it really should be 100% full, and place some weights on it if you can.
also, the shorter the pole, the less its going to wobble in the wind.
as an edit: dish now makes a stabilized mount for patios. far better than a pole in a bucket. its called the 'patio mount'. no holes drilled and nothing attatched to structure.

 

[the mack]

I have a similar situation and put my cement filled 5 gallon bucket in a very large plastic garden pot and filled the void with sand. it looks better with some plastic flowers on top and the extra width and 60 pounds of sand made it more stable.

you can also use some fishing line as guy wires to tie it off and it won't look like it is attached.
I know some apartment/condo's can be a bitch when it comes to dish location/mounting.

as said above expect to tweek it from time to time

good luck

 

[jdmacor]

Thanks for the suggestions! I think the patio mount is the thing I wanted; a bracket that attaches to the railing, right? For whatever reason, that is a no-no, even though nothing is being drilled into and it can be removed when I leave... Stupid management... Unless you are talking about something more like a tri-pod?

As for the garden pot, I actually have been meaning to do that. The white bucket is pretty ugly out there; the thing that was holding me back was me freaking out about screwing up my reception. Now that my reception is screwed up, it seems like as good a time as any to mess with it! And the fishing line is a good idea, because that would be hard to spot from the ground.

 

[gadgetguru63]

The patio mount is a pole mounted to a flat frame that holds concrete blocks for stability. Call dish to have them install this new mount. The apt complex will have no problem with this mount. It was developed for apartments.

 

[Y2k06]

Just out of curiosity (I don't live in an apartment), but if they will not allow you to make a non-destructive mount to the railing (simple clamps), or screw it in to a wall or something, how do they get the cables from the patio/deck inside without drilling a hole in the wall? Isn't that more destructive that a few hardware store clamps on a railing?

 

[dishnet_tech]

Just out of curiosity (I don't live in an apartment), but if they will not allow you to make a non-destructive mount to the railing (simple clamps), or screw it in to a wall or something, how do they get the cables from the patio/deck inside without drilling a hole in the wall? Isn't that more destructive that a few hardware store clamps on a railing?

Flat strips

 

[RegisteredUser]

Bucket mounts have been banned for several years. Call customer service-get someone there to do it right. You shouldn't have to pay anything, as it is an improper install.

 

[Liquidforce88]

Bucket mounts have been banned for several years. Call customer service-get someone there to do it right. You shouldn't have to pay anything, as it is an improper install.

What are you talking about banned?

And the balcony mount is nothing more than a nonpen roof mount. The only thing bad about these is it takes up a huge amount of your balcony space.

You just need to find a way to make your bucket mount stable. With the restrictions that apartments are putting on satellite installs, this is the only solution for some people.

As an installer I try to do everything I can to install not using a bucket mount. With that said any customer that is willing to accept that as the install method should realize at some point that bucket is going to move, and the dish will need to be adjusted.