Phlatwound Takes Over Care and Feeding of the Birdview Spoon

[phlatwound]

I am preparing to rotate the dish/wedge assembly 90 degrees on the mount, so I did some measuring and established some lines on the dish to orient the new holes I will need to drill.

Today, with the dish in bright sunlight I noticed that there is a very small line (seam?) on the long (vertical) axis of the dish, so I penciled that one in, the horizontal line was measured off of the existing studs (centered).

Once I get the dish/wedge rotated and installed on the mount I will have to get the dish face perfectly vertical, then measure the elevation bar, to determine the total of the offset that is created by the wedge and the built-in mount declination.

Then things will start to get interesting.........

 

[phlatwound]

Pics of the wedge with the new holes drilled, that are rotated 90 degrees from the factory locations, and the wedge installed on the BV H-H mount in the rotated position.

 

[phlatwound]

Pics of the dish attached to the wedge, on the BV H-H mount.

Angles shown are 37.7* degrees on the main elevation bar (apex elevation is 37.63) and an angle of 58.1 degrees (taken on the "vertical" axis of the dish, from rim-to-rim) when the elevation bar was at 37.6 (*taken after I took the pic at 37.7 earlier).

58.1 (dish face elevation) - 37.6 (main elevation bar) = 20.5 degrees offset

This 20.5 degrees of offset is the sum of the wedge offfset (approximately 15 degrees), and the offset that is built into the BV H-H mount (approximately 5.5 degrees).

 

[Cadsulfide]

Phlat;

Looks like you will be suffering with 90+ SQ on almost everything, you poor guy

 

[phlatwound]

Phlat;

Looks like you will be suffering with 90+ SQ on almost everything, you poor guy

I'm a glutton for punishment!

Still a ways from figuring this thing out, but it could be quite a performer if I can utilize all the parabolic real estate, efficiently.

 

[stogie5150]

I'm a glutton for punishment!

Still a ways from figuring this thing out, but it could be quite a performer if I can utilize all the parabolic real estate, efficiently.

We have all the faith in the world, in ya, J. You Da Man! :up

 

[Lone Cloud]

Although I can't imagine where I'd put it (I'd find a place) , I have been so happy with my Birdview solid 8.5 footer that I'd get a Spoon if I could find one.

I am in Southern California in case anyone wants to get rid of one.

If I could figure out where the "pallets" of them are, I'd be on my way today.

 

[turbosat]

That is one strange dish, everybody's going to want one now, haha!! Good work, get it fired up and report back. I want to know if it buries the meter on every signal.

 

[phlatwound]

The Spun Spoon lives!

Had a few minutes this evening so I stuck a Techsat Tracker LNBF in the massive BV conical scalar (3 turns of electrical tape and a section of a styrofoam coffee cup made a nice circular shim and a tight fit).

My true south is 93W so I entered the tp info for the Azteca mux, and started raising and lowering the dish, and then rotating the mount 1/8" at a time on the pole.

The second move to the east was a charm, and soon I was viewing Azteca at some serious SQ levels.

My elevation bar was reading 56.6 degrees when I finally locked the signal, so this dish is quite a bit more vertical than my .9 meter 3ABN, when pointing at the same sat (93W).

Here are some pics of the LNBF location, the elevation bar reading and some SQ readings on the Visionsat.

Looks like that pic is showing 96%, I saw it as high as 99%.

I lost SQ quickly when I moved the LNBF any closer to the dish from the pictured location, but I could hold it almost an inch behind the scalar ring and still get +80% SQ.

Now to try and figure out what it's going to take to get this beast tracking the arc, more to come.

 

[turbosat]

What a scalar! And as expected, you have some great signal beaming in to the Visionsat.

 

[Cadsulfide]

That little redhead looks good in there!

 

[gremlin411]

very nice
I know it has been said ... U R the man..

 

[caddata]

Hey Phlat:

I'm really enjoying this thread, keep those reports coming. When you get time, could you make us a detailed sketch of the scalar with dimensions? I'd like to fabricate one from sheetmetal.

Thanks,
Harold

 

[Cadsulfide]

Caddata;

I would like to see your finished scalar, they could be QUITE useful

 

[phlatwound]

Hey Phlat:

I'm really enjoying this thread, keep those reports coming. When you get time, could you make us a detailed sketch of the scalar with dimensions? I'd like to fabricate one from sheetmetal.

Thanks,
Harold

Harold, as soon as I get a chance I will pull the scalar off the feed supports and take a bunch of pics with rulers and scales attached to the piece.

Then, if you need more info just let me know and I can take more pics or measurements.

 

[phlatwound]

Today I hooked my G-Box/Visionsat IV-200 to the Spoon and attempted to see how much of the arc I could track with the 56.6 degree setting on the elevation bar.

I made absolutely no adjustments to the LNBF, or the azimuth, and was tracking and receiving strong (95%-100%) SQ from 79W on the east, to 105W on the west, including 65% on RTV @ 83W.

I got a whiff of ONN on 74W, and it was able to increase my SQ (from 7% to 12%) by lifting up on the dish, so it appears I am aiming too low as I get nearer the east end of the arc, not sure about the west end.

Didn't have enough time to make any adjustments but at this point it looks like I am tracking well about 20 degrees each direction from my true south (93W).

 

[crackt]

no offence but the dish was sillier in its original orientation. you have done some nice work none the less but i would like to know why exactly you thought you had to modify it to work correctly ? did it not work right from the mill ?

crackt out,.

 

[phlatwound]

no offence but the dish was sillier in its original orientation. you have done some nice work none the less but i would like to know why exactly you thought you had to modify it to work correctly ? did it not work right from the mill ?

crackt out,.

Hey crackt, good questions. The main reasons (in my little mind) that I rotated the dish to initiate my testing was, 1.) more efficient Ku-digital use of the parabolic real estate as the dish travels the arc....and 2.) I really don't know how to aim it in the factory orientation. I have enough trouble figuring out things when they are fairly "standard".

With the dish oriented as I have it now my only "unknown" is declination, as azimuth is obvious, and elevation is easily adjusted with the mount. I'm sure that the dish did work correctly from the factory....for C-band analog. If anyone has any knowledge or theories of how the dish would reflect the signal in the factory position please post them here.

It took me an hour to drill the holes and install the dish rotated 90 degrees, and with help I can return it to the original orientation in 5-10 minutes, so it wasn't a huge investment of time or labor.

And the only thing that could possibly be considered offensive in your post is the implication that a Birdview Spoon could look silly......in ANY orientation!!!

 

[1captain]

Very nice dish Plat, it is neat looking wish I had one here but have never seen 1 like that before done here in Fla. an have worked on about any style dish you could think of too. an I bet it will realy work great on Ku too.

so good luck with it.

now when I did my mod here an set up the 1.2m on a C-band H2H mount, the main thing to get it to track the ark was the declination. now this is what I read from the Prodelin web site, that the offset angle of the dish is added to declination offset for you're area. but I was like you what is the offset? I did not know, so it was all trail an error.

this is how I got mine to track, 1st I set my elevation to what it is for my area, then adjusted the offset rods to bring signal in on my true south sat, then drove to west 129 bird an moved on pole, then ran over to Telstar-12 an check it. then I kept adding to the offset adjustment rods till I got it to track perfect, an then went all back over tuning an checking again. believe it was a very time taking process, a 1/4 or 1/2 turn of the nuts on the 5/8" rod made big changes in the tracking. now the only bad thing is you're declination is fixed with that plate that bolts to the mount an the dish. if their is a way to make it adjustable I think it will help you a lot, or try to shim the bottom of the mount or the top of the mount. also on another note, where the 1/2 moon gear bolts to the birdview mount with the 4 1/2" bolts, their is a small declination adjustment, all of my mounts here you can slide it up or down a bit wich will give you a small bit of declination adjustment, those holes are egg shaped in all 5 of my mounts here, but that animal could be different, don't know.

good luck.

 

[crackt]

i meant good silly. like... "did you see that guy do that silly backflip". haha. i wish there were a few birviews up here in canada. anyways it is a cool dish. havent seen another one like it.

crackt out,.