new 1.2 meter dish and 12 footer

[ZetaMale]

I finally got the third panel installed after about 2 hours. I tried drilling out holes but they were getting too big so I ended up installing slightly smaller bolts - which I just happen to have. It's about 90 already on it's way to 104 so I'm going to see if I can continue this later if there's still enough daylight after the temperature drops below 90. It's suppose to be cooler tomorrow but still 96 for the forecast. Monday will be even cooler but the wind is suppose to kick up. Tuesday is going to be much cooler than it has been along with rain/snow and we have a freeze warning for Tuesday night. I probably won't have the dish on the pole until next weekend. Also, the dish came with 2 circular plates that were in the panel package so I'm guessing those are center plates for the reflector - I'm thinking those will be a challenge to put on since it's looking like they have to be installed after the panels are installed. Looks like I'll have to do some touch up painting also. Too bad I can't afford a 10+ footer dish that's a single piece......

 

[ZetaMale]

Continuing work on assembling the reflector today. It'll probably take most of the day and probably tomorrow to get it assembled. There's no way to easily assemble this and I'm not sure if I'll be able to get a proper parabolic shape with this reflector. I've had to bend the ring supports in order to get these panels to fit properly. I finally got the 4th panel on this morning. I just hope that after all this effort that it'll install on the mount without any issues.

I've had issues with assembling Paraclipse and KTI but nothing like this. For $2000, I expected better.......

 

[ZetaMale]

After 6 hours I managed to get 2 more panels added. 2 panels left. I don't care what TEK says, there's no way in H-E-double hockey sticks that these panels will simply slide into place. Maybe they would've installed easier if they were installed onto a mounted ring? I wondered if it might have been easier to install the panels with the reflector face up instead of face down. I don't do enough of this to have a preference. Anyway, I'm quitting for today and will pick back up on this on Thursday. I don't think I've ever worked this hard.......Where's my ice tea?

 

[FTA4PA]

After 6 hours I managed to get 2 more panels added. 2 panels left. I don't care what TEK says, there's no way in H-E-double hockey sticks that these panels will simply slide into place. Maybe they would've installed easier if they were installed onto a mounted ring? I wondered if it might have been easier to install the panels with the reflector face up instead of face down. I don't do enough of this to have a preference. Anyway, I'm quitting for today and will pick back up on this on Thursday. I don't think I've ever worked this hard.......Where's my ice tea?

Well, at least you are making progress. As they say, "Slow and steady wins the race". If it's frustrating then definitely a good idea to take a break from it and enjoy some iced tea!

 

[ZetaMale]

I just hope this antenna gives decent performance after all this effort. I had to do some strong arming and almost went and got a grinder. I had to bend some angle iron to get the panel holes to line up so that the panels would line up. I couldn't think of anything else I could've done. After the next hail storm I'm either going to spend an additional 1000-2000 dollars for a better engineered antenna or give up on TVRO. And maybe have someone else assemble it - I'm not getting any younger.

 

[cyberham]

johnny: I've been having a characteristic with my 1.2m on C-band where the Azteca mux on 97W signal would oscillate between locked & not locked. This made none of the channels watchable.

I just studied my installation and noticed the mount was just very slightly off plumb. I fixed this quite easily. Now Azteca is solid at 8.4 dB in the daytime. I've not received this mux in the daytime before. So all 9 channels are clear now.

The point is the 1.2m probably could serve your intended purpose. I realize you put a lot of effort into it. Anyway, there is no contest between the 12-footer and a 4-footer. Your work will be rewarded in time.

Sent from my SM-G950W using the SatelliteGuys app!

 

[ZetaMale]

johnny: I've been having a characteristic with my 1.2m on C-band where the Azteca mux on 97W signal would oscillate between locked & not locked. This made none of the channels watchable.

I just studied my installation and noticed the mount was just very slightly off plumb. I fixed this quite easily. Now Azteca is solid at 8.4 dB in the daytime. I've not received this mux in the daytime before. So all 9 channels are clear now.

The point is the 1.2m probably could serve your intended purpose. I realize you put a lot of effort into it. Anyway, there is no contest between the 12-footer and a 4-footer. Your work will be rewarded in time.

I'm getting 10.2 dB C/N on Azteca this morning on the 1.2 meter even with the clouds and light snow. I get it most of the time but there has been at least one time where the feeds disappeared for a couple of hours between 1500 and 1800. 10.2 dB is well above the minimum but not as good as on the 12 foot KTI where it's 14.5 dB C/N. Still it should be stable enough for me to turn over the 4 footer to the wife. I did lose everything on 99W and H&I/Decades on 101W (StartTV comes in fine though). Work will continue on the TEK 12 footer when the weather improves but I'm not looking forward to working on the TEK. I hope the TEK works well when I finally get it on the pole.

 

[ZetaMale]

The TEK 12 footer is almost ready. I'll need to round up a couple people to flip it over to do a string test but I'm willing to bet that it'll fail but will be close. I'm not going to spend much time getting it perfect since it's been a major challenge just to get the panels installed. I should've kept the Paraclipse and spent the outrageous amount of money to have new panels made up. Oh well.

 

[ZetaMale]

I took the 1.2 meter off the pole used with the Paraclipse. My Paraclipse 12 footer came with a square pipe that fits over a 3.5 inch diameter pole. I bought an adapter pipe that increases the diameter to 4.5 inches for the TEK 12 footer. After taking the square pipe off, it turns out the 3.5 inch pipe is only 3 feet and I can get it up to 4 feet with the adapter pipe but, obviously, I'm going to have to put in a new pipe. There's another $175 wasted. So it will be a while longer before I get this project done. I suppose I could use the 4 foot pipe and set east/west limits accordingly. Or use a 3.5" pole coupler and a 2-3 foot 3.5" extension pipe.

 

[primestar31]

I took the 1.2 meter off the pole used with the Paraclipse. My Paraclipse 12 footer came with a square pipe that fits over a 3.5 inch diameter pole. I bought an adapter pipe that increases the diameter to 4.5 inches for the TEK 12 footer. After taking the square pipe off, it turns out the 3.5 inch pipe is only 3 feet and I can get it up to 4 feet with the adapter pipe but, obviously, I'm going to have to put in a new pipe. There's another $175 wasted. So it will be a while longer before I get this project done. I suppose I could use the 4 foot pipe and set east/west limits accordingly. Or use a 3.5" pole coupler and a 2-3 foot 3.5" extension pipe.

I've slid slightly larger pipes over the top of smaller ones to make them taller, and drilled and bolted them together. It works perfectly, provided the original pipe was mounted properly with enough cement.

 

[ZetaMale]

I don't know if I can get 4.5" pipe around here but I'll have to call around on Monday. Drilling holes through such thick walled pipe would be a challenge though. As for the concrete, the 12 foot Paraclipse never fell over or tilted during it's 15 year service so I think I'm OK there.

 

[primestar31]

Well, you are right, it's not easy to drill holes through that. Though I once drilled through 4.5 inch well casing pipe I used over a 3.5 inch pipe. It is a big challenge, but it can be done.

 

[ZetaMale]

I found an old piece of 3.5" OD pipe in the garage that's 5' in length. I'm considering cutting off 3' and use a pipe coupler to make a 6' pipe using the existing pipe. As I already mentioned, I have a 3.5" to 4.5" pipe adapter that I got from TEK. Anyway, I can get the pipe cut locally but it'll probably take a week to get a coupler from TEK unless I can get someone to fabricate something locally. Getting a 6' piece of 4.5" and having someone drill holes and weld sufficiently sized nuts over the holes to secure it in place would be ideal.

 

[SkySurfer80]

I got my GeoSatPro 1.2 meter the other day. Looks OK. I didn't know that it came with a Ku LNBF. Anyway, my plan is to modify the Paraclipse polar mount so that I can put this dish on it. It took quite a bit of effort to fabricate something but I'm ready to mount the dish. I'm going to put a C-band LNBF on it and if it works out I'll be making it the wife's dish. If not, I'll be going to plan B and install the TEK 12 footer on that pole. Two of the 12 footer panels have damage but it's too late to get replacement panels since I didn't inspect and report right away. I "guess" the UPS guy didn't see the "Fragile" labels all over the box. My son said the UPS guy carried both boxes in by himself instead of getting help. I wasn't home at the time. The panels should've been packaged better anyway - there wasn't any kind of packaging to cushion the panels. I plan to put the dish up eventually but only if I can repair the damage to the panels. If I have to buy new panels it'll probably sit around collecting dust - because of CV-19 I might not be able to get replacement panels anyway. Anyway, I should have the 1.2 meter online tomorrow. The only question I have about it is the orientation of the elevation bracket for the antenna. The instructions says to attach it one of two ways depending on whether you use an HH motor. Since I'm going to be using an actuator should it be mounted as if I'm using an HH motor? I guess it doesn't matter as long as I can get the antenna on target.

Nice setup! Dream setup for me!

 

[ZetaMale]

I just got my pole sleeve/coupler last night and installed it today. I wish both the coupler and the 3.5 to 4.5 inch adapter had a tighter tolerance which would have helped with getting the pole plumb. I may have to re-level later so I didn't spend a great deal of time making it plumb. But I'm within a 1/2 degree of plumb. It's too windy to try to assemble the rest of the dish today but I am anxious to get it done before the snow flies. But we have snow in the forecast tomorrow night so it'll probably be windy tomorrow. Oh well.

 

[primestar31]

How loose is it? Get some PVC pipe, and cut some wedges from it to use as shims. Then side it between the two metal pipes to shim them.

 

[cyberham]

I just got my pole sleeve/coupler last night and installed it today....

It looks handsome to my eyes.

 

[ZetaMale]

It looks handsome to my eyes.

It's hard to believe that it's called the Big Ugly Dish. I think it looks cool. Well, it will after finishing the installation. Too bad I don't have an acre or two..........

 

[ZetaMale]

How does one determine thread size on metric bolts? The web search hasn't made it clear. TEK was unable to tell me what was shipped because they said that it can vary depending on what's on hand. I need an M22 nut but I need to figure out what kind of threading I need.

 

[arlo]

Best way probably is find the same bolt or nut you need and head out to the hardware store.
Many places will have a sample display of metric hardware with different designations and thread pitch.
M22 can go from 0.5-3.0 mm thread pitch. Without a pitch gauge, familiarity is the only other way.