All of my BUDS were fine with the snow, never lost a signal through the 2+ feet of snow this last week. However, I went to church Saturday evening to watch a satellite broadcast with the congregation and there was a message on the screen indicating that the receiver was searching for a signal. GREAT, it's 5 degrees without windchill (probably -35 with windchill), I'm wearing my suit (and left my coat at home since I'm stupid), and there waist deep snow all around the dish about 10 feet in every direction - and everyone expects that I would know what to do (and I did, but didn't wanna do it!)
Apparently the person who does the walkways thought it would be fun to run the huge snowblower back and forth, and make a game out of aiming the snow that flys out of the chute so that it would blow into the dish. A fun game for him, but not for me! So I climb through the snow with a big broom, and luckily as I get closer to the dish, the snow hardened enough that I could walk up on top of the snow. I flop the broom out there and the handle must have already been busted, because the top of the broom comes tumbling back to me
So now I go get a shovel. Of course I'm getting flack about using a shovel on the dish - "Don't break it! That's an expensive dish" .. and I grumpily reply "Well it's an expensive piece of junk! My free dishes are still working!"
I dug every last bit of snow out of the dish (sweating, wheezing, and freezing because I'm doing this with only minutes to spare before the broadcast starts). You would have thought that digging the snow out of the bottom of the dish would have let the snow from the top just slide down, but it was frozen in there good (and at least 1 foot deep) and would not budge unless manually dug at! Still no picture after the snow is gone - and of course everyone begins to doubt that I know what I'm doing now. So I bend down and grab the bottom of the dish and give it a big tug, and the dish moved upwards on it's mount about 3-4 inches pretty easily (which is disgusting given that this is a dish with no motor, and is designed to never move - it should have been mounted a little more solid than this!)
After the 3-4 inch movement of the dish, everyone cheers and I know that we have a picture. So now I go in to watch the broadcast in my snow covered suit pants & shoes and my sweaty shirt, being the hero for the day *laf* Now today I get to make calls to discuss proper sidewalk cleaning to the person who does our walks, to discuss getting someone out to professionally adjust our dish (because of course I'm not a pro, just the guy who's gotten it to work the last several times it was broken minutes before a broadcast), and to see if facilities management will bring us a new broom
Apparently the person who does the walkways thought it would be fun to run the huge snowblower back and forth, and make a game out of aiming the snow that flys out of the chute so that it would blow into the dish. A fun game for him, but not for me! So I climb through the snow with a big broom, and luckily as I get closer to the dish, the snow hardened enough that I could walk up on top of the snow. I flop the broom out there and the handle must have already been busted, because the top of the broom comes tumbling back to me
So now I go get a shovel. Of course I'm getting flack about using a shovel on the dish - "Don't break it! That's an expensive dish" .. and I grumpily reply "Well it's an expensive piece of junk! My free dishes are still working!"I dug every last bit of snow out of the dish (sweating, wheezing, and freezing because I'm doing this with only minutes to spare before the broadcast starts). You would have thought that digging the snow out of the bottom of the dish would have let the snow from the top just slide down, but it was frozen in there good (and at least 1 foot deep) and would not budge unless manually dug at! Still no picture after the snow is gone - and of course everyone begins to doubt that I know what I'm doing now. So I bend down and grab the bottom of the dish and give it a big tug, and the dish moved upwards on it's mount about 3-4 inches pretty easily (which is disgusting given that this is a dish with no motor, and is designed to never move - it should have been mounted a little more solid than this!)
After the 3-4 inch movement of the dish, everyone cheers and I know that we have a picture. So now I go in to watch the broadcast in my snow covered suit pants & shoes and my sweaty shirt, being the hero for the day *laf* Now today I get to make calls to discuss proper sidewalk cleaning to the person who does our walks, to discuss getting someone out to professionally adjust our dish (because of course I'm not a pro, just the guy who's gotten it to work the last several times it was broken minutes before a broadcast), and to see if facilities management will bring us a new broom
