Hey all,
After spending a good week or so getting my NPRM perfectly plumb, I put an HH-90 motor onto my 90cm dish (GeosatPro). All in all, the process was much easier than I expected. I made sure to follow both the guide in the sticky and the manual that came with the motor. I figured since people here like pictures, I could also play with the macro filter for my camera.
A few things I noticed while installing:
The motor tube was awkward to get into place, mostly because it has (1) a little lip on the bottom, and (2) a tab on the top.
I removed the two bolts on the back of the dish clamp and lined up that tab with the back. It was still a really tight squeeze, so I used a flathead screwdriver to pry a little more wiggle room out of it. It's a tight squeeze, but the two pieces will fit together. I put in the through-bolt then the bolts on the back of the clamp, trying to keep it as straight as possible. Then I put the shaft onto the motor, followed by attaching the reflector and arm for the LNB.
I thought I'd screw up the motor and dish elevation settings, but it was simple. Latitude is latitude. The manual states that the dish elevation setting is the elevation of true south-(45-latitude). 44.7-(45-39.1)=38.8
Like KE4EST mentions in his guide, don't over-tighten the bolts. I did have to adjust slightly east/west until I had a good signal on a near-south bird, then sent the motor to each bird to scan. Some very slight adjustments and BAM, 83W-125W come in.
I also learned not to under-tighten the bolts. We had some strong winds over the weekend, with gusts hitting around 60mph. This was strong enough to rotate the dish slightly on the pole, juuuuust enough to take out some of the weaker transponders.
The hardest part of all this, of course, was making sure the pole was plumb. The dish is on a tall-ish NPRM from Craigslist. Once it was perfectly plumb and everything installed, I realized the railing was a major issue. The post on the NPRM is tall, but not quite tall enough to deal with the railing. I grabbed a few cinderblocks and brought the dish high enough to move freely.
Now that the motor's set up, the next project is blind scanning every bird I can see and making a couple channel lists.
After spending a good week or so getting my NPRM perfectly plumb, I put an HH-90 motor onto my 90cm dish (GeosatPro). All in all, the process was much easier than I expected. I made sure to follow both the guide in the sticky and the manual that came with the motor. I figured since people here like pictures, I could also play with the macro filter for my camera.
A few things I noticed while installing:
The motor tube was awkward to get into place, mostly because it has (1) a little lip on the bottom, and (2) a tab on the top.
I removed the two bolts on the back of the dish clamp and lined up that tab with the back. It was still a really tight squeeze, so I used a flathead screwdriver to pry a little more wiggle room out of it. It's a tight squeeze, but the two pieces will fit together. I put in the through-bolt then the bolts on the back of the clamp, trying to keep it as straight as possible. Then I put the shaft onto the motor, followed by attaching the reflector and arm for the LNB.
I thought I'd screw up the motor and dish elevation settings, but it was simple. Latitude is latitude. The manual states that the dish elevation setting is the elevation of true south-(45-latitude). 44.7-(45-39.1)=38.8
Like KE4EST mentions in his guide, don't over-tighten the bolts. I did have to adjust slightly east/west until I had a good signal on a near-south bird, then sent the motor to each bird to scan. Some very slight adjustments and BAM, 83W-125W come in.
I also learned not to under-tighten the bolts. We had some strong winds over the weekend, with gusts hitting around 60mph. This was strong enough to rotate the dish slightly on the pole, juuuuust enough to take out some of the weaker transponders.
The hardest part of all this, of course, was making sure the pole was plumb. The dish is on a tall-ish NPRM from Craigslist. Once it was perfectly plumb and everything installed, I realized the railing was a major issue. The post on the NPRM is tall, but not quite tall enough to deal with the railing. I grabbed a few cinderblocks and brought the dish high enough to move freely.
Now that the motor's set up, the next project is blind scanning every bird I can see and making a couple channel lists.
