Spring Planting... Dish Farming... Cultivating FTA Fever

[gpflepsen]

For the past few years I've been collecting dishes and parts and just never had the time (and WAF) to devote to getting a dish farm established... until now! The land to my south is being rezones for a residential lot (exactly opposite of what the land owner said when we bought this land "...that land will never have a house on it... blah blah blah..."). So the wife, who up until now has been kinda cold to the dish idea, just said to me "you have a green light to put up as many dishes as you want". That really spurred me on! Nothing like a dozen dishes to make a good impression on prospective lot buyers.

I currently have an 8' Channel Master for C-Band with a Ku LNBF strapped to the side on a polar mount. http://www.satelliteguys.us/xen/threads/ghetto-ku-sidecar-on-8-channel-master.302239/ I also have a GeosatPro 90cm dish on a motor. The setup works well, but the weaker C Band signals are out of reach. I just hate waiting for the dish movements to jump from orbital to orbital. So, multiple dishes seems like a good pursuit.

I acquired a 12' mesh dish that is in pretty good shape complete with polar mount and pole (http://www.satelliteguys.us/xen/thr...to-take-a-look-at.327363/page-29#post-3213144 ) but the actuator was seized and may be damaged beyond repair from the brute force it took to get it free again. If I get it up, it might be stationary until I get a replacement actuator for it. I may not need to make it movable though, because...

I also have a nice 10' single piece fiberglass dish, with polar mount, actuator and pole that I think will be a very good performer. A thread from 2-1/2 years ago... http://www.satelliteguys.us/xen/thr...ss-one-piece-home-from-260-miles-away.317487/

About 1-1/2 years ago I came across an advertisement here on satguys http://www.satelliteguys.us/xen/threads/primestar-and-other-dishes-for-sale.342914/ and wound up getting 9 Primestar 84e dishes and a 90m Channel Master... they sat and sat...

I picked up about 10 Eagle Aspen 270Ku dual output LNBs with the feedhorn, all lightly used and they all check out! For reference: https://www.impaktproducts.com/Eagle-Aspen-270-Ku-Band-Dual-Output-Linear-LNBF-ON-SALE-p-16619.html I did not order from impak, but from the kijiji. Less than $100 delivered out of Canada was decent. In my testing on 125w OETA, 87w LPBS and 30w, they seem to perform well.

To prepare for trouble free installation, I set up a 84e inside and figured the aiming geometry, as I've been frustrated before by offset dishes with half-baked elevation scales. To my delight, the elevation scale was about spot-on. I also learned that the flat surface on the mount bracket next to the elevation fine adjustment screw is parallel to the aiming line. You can just put an inclinometer there and directly read the elevation.

A few weeks ago I moved to the verification of performance phase. I set up an 84e on a pallet for temporary aiming out of the overhead doors of the shop. 97w (my south sat) popped right in with good signal strength on the Sathero SH-200. I worried about the parabolic reflector used for off-south aiming because there have been no provisions to skew the dish, just the LNBs. The feedhorn is locked relative to the dish.

I swung the dish over to 125w and got good signals with the lnb skewed. Next was 87w, it popped right in with decent signal too. I've dreaded the 30w because several things were unknown; the lack of dish skewing, the elevation may not dip down to 9°... but I tested it and it does! I swung the dish to 30w with 45° of lnb skew and sexysat came right in . So, now I'm thinking I can get away with not skewing any of the 84e dishes!

Here's the 84e getting 30w at 9° elevation...

A few weeks ago, I dropped a text to the guy I got the 84e dishes from, because he had a 1.8m Prodeline when I was there. He still had it and let me buy it off him, so now I have a 1.8m with the AZ/EL mount and a polar mount on which to work fabricating a dish mount, taking in account the offset angle and declination.

So now I have most all the pieces ready for putting the dishes up. Oh, and I grabbed some scrap tubing and pipe from the salvage yard for mounting.

All I need now is the spare time, which I think I'll have this spring, and some good weather and the spring dish planting will begin!

No promises of progress, but I intend to keep this post updated as progress is made. Wish me luck!

 

[gpflepsen]

As you can see from the previous post, I have several Primestar 84e elliptical dishes. I've heard that the axis of the dish should be parallel to the plane of the satellites and the LNB skew would be 0 relative to the dish. I did some testing with the dish horizontal and the LNB skewed 46°, as seen in the above pictures. I was able to lock on 30w relatively easy and get decent signals.

Why does the axis of the reflector have to be aligned with the inclination of the satellite orbit? I've heard it's for rejection of adjacent signal interference from neighboring satellites, but there's probably not much adjacent to 30w to worry about in this case. But I had to see what skewing the dish would do.

I've seen other people mount these dishes with something to allow the skew to be applied to the whole dish, like a boat seat swivel. These would work but involve some fabrication. To do it right would require quite a bit more fabrication to maintain the correct geometry of the dish for easy setup of the dish, i.e. the axis of the seat swivel needs to be parallel with the axis of the dish's aim. That would get very messy... essentially building some wedged mounts between the back of the dish and the mounting bracket.

Well, screw that! You can see how messy that would get. I thought why not just mount the dish in what would basically be a fixed polar mount? Why not? It seems to be a no-brainer!

First thing to do is mount the J-pole so its pivoting point is perpendicular to 180°, due south. To do this, I mounted the dish on a plump J-pole and aimed for my south satellites. I'm at 96w, so I split 95w and 97w. Titanium gave a great tip some years ago for mounting a Ku dish on a motor so the motor and dish are in alignment: measure from the dish side edges to a reference point on the motor (or in my case the mounting base for the J-pole). When you have equal measurements off both sides of the dish, you are aligned.

So with the dish mounted and aligned on a plumb J-pole, The whole assembly is rotated to get 95w, then marked somewhere for reference. The whole assembly is rotated to hit 97w, and another mark is made for reference. For me, splitting the 95w and 97w reference marks puts the dish aimed due south.

Next, the J-pole is loosened and rotated until the mounting section is inclined to my latitude. The once plumb J-pole will now act as the pivot of a polar mount. I actually adjusted the angle to get me a "Modified Polar mount" so the aiming would be more precise at the far east of the dish swing when looking to 30w.

Next, mount the dish and drop the dish elevation until you are picking up the south satellites. To make this easier, I mapped the geometry of the 84e to get some references because the elevation scale is now useless with the mounting mast at ~42°. I found that the LNBF support arm is 8° lower than the aiming point. My true south birds are 43° elevation, so I have to adjust the LNBF arm until it is 43°-8°=35°.

Great! got signal locked on 97w! Now its just a matter or rotating the dish on the mast mount, just like a motor would be doing, and tick off the sats as I work down to 30w. Sounds easy, and it really is. 95w,.. then 93w, then 87w, then 72... 72... sun of a bitch! When I get to about 75w, the J-pole starts to interfere with the dish's reflector.

I'm thinking some fabrication is going to be happening... But wait, how about just flipping the dish reflector on the elevation mount? Eureka, it works! No cutting or welding anything! Remember when I said the LNBF arm was 8° lower than the aiming point? Now the support arm is 8° above the aiming point. Here's a picture of the dish with the reflector/LNB flipped and aiming at 30w.

So now the dish is upside-down and the skew of the dish matches the skew of the satellite. The signal strength was really not much better that when just the LNB was skewed, which I was expecting some increase.

Can you see the amount of dirt on the face of the dish? I brushed all that off and got maybe another .5 to .75 on the C/N scale.

It may seem daunting to aim a dish, but I think if one figures out and understands the geometry involved, and applies this to what needs to be done, and has some good basic tools to help, getting things working almost becomes trivial.

I use:

Meter; SatHero SH-200: It is basic and will lock on DVB-S signals and scan them to let you know if you're on the satellite you think you're on. It will give strength indications for S2 signals, but doesn't lock and scan them. But you get the strength meters, so that's no issue unless there are no DVB-S transponders and you need to scan to verify.



Angle Finder; Crude but works. Needle is a bit bouncy, but it get you real close.

Once again, Titanium recommended recently Bubble inclinometer from the Play Store for the phone. It really works well, outstanding actually. I'll never install another dish without it. It seems to be very accurate. I also downloaded Compass 360 Pro. It works well and gives you indications if you are being affected by local magnetic fields. Thanks for those suggestions. I have been using the little Cracker Jack compass that came with my first Dish Network 300 system. It worked too, but it was just a TOY!

If you made it to this end, thanks for reading!

 

[FaT Air]

Why does the axis of the reflector have to be aligned with the inclination of the satellite orbit?

From my Pstar notes:
"Elliptical dishes will exhibit adjacent satellite rejection equivalent to a 'normal' offset with the same width. This would be greatest when the dish is skewed to align with the arc.
I.E. A 75e will have less gain than a 90cm but exhibit comparable adjacent rejection. "

Nice rendition of the 'poor mans HtoH'

 

[catamount]

Good job! Most old posts doing this flip the dish upside down as you have done. I tried this about 7 years ago, but had a DOH!! moment. I screwed the base to an old mitre saw base . Thus, I could use the scale. I forgot the dish has to flip over the pole {manual polar mount}. Never had a spot to screw down the mitre saw base so I could try it out. It would be quick though, just slight elevation adjustment and little skew adjust. Azimouth would be by degrees on mitre saw.

Catamount

 

[gpflepsen]

Nice rendition of the 'poor mans HtoH'

Thanks, I hadn't seen that. Too bad the links are broken to the pictures. Was Pete hanging his dish upside down, or did he mount the dish upside down on the elevation mount?

 

[FaT Air]

I see the pictures when I click on them (link) aw heck. here they are:

Guess the only thing I'd done different is paint the backsides 'n' try to motorize

So, this was an Accidental Re-discovery of the 'Poor man's HtoH'?

 

[catamount]

Pics work fine here. That was one of the threads I saw years ago. I believe he just mounted the dish upside down on the j-pole

Catamount

 

[gpflepsen]

I see the pictures when I click on them (link)

I never saw thumbnails, I figured they were broke... I figured wrong!

So, this was an Accidental Re-discovery of the 'Poor man's HtoH'?

I just did some searching for the term "Poor man's HtoH", never heard that before. I've seen upside down dishes mounted before.

Like I've now seen in other threads, There is a valid reasons to flip the dish, and that's how I came upon it to solve my problem. I actually cut a J-pole to start reconfiguration, then it was like "bam", accidental rediscovery as you say.

Found this too

 

[gpflepsen]

On the topic of skewing an 84e dish, I came across this while perusing Craigslist Lawrence KS . This is a Channel Master 84e dish, but look closely at the pictures, the mount attachment point seems to have been altered in the dish mold to allow a skew-able mounting plate. The other pic shows what could be the skewable mount on the J-pole. I wish the pic had another angle to see the "swivel plate". This is essentially accomplishes the "wedge adapter" I described earlier.

 

[FaT Air]

But, the Poor man's HtoH takes care of the skew as it's a ' polar mount '.
Think that is a stationary, now skew, mount. If skewable there's a center pivot bolt and bolt thru slots on the perimeter. (IIRR)

 

[gpflepsen]

It's been a while since I did anything other than testing. Yesterday I set a 3" pipe to the north of the house next to the shop to have a testing mount accessible from there if I want to have FTA equipment in the shop. Today I temporarily set the 1.8m Prodeline aimed over the house towards 87w to test LPB reception. It was a good day signal wise, as the two below pics show the results from both an 84e and the 1.8m side-by-side through a 4x1 DiSEqC switch on an Amiko Mini HD. There's quite an improvement with the bigger dish!





Here are a few pics of the 1.8m and the AZ/EL mount. I'll eventually move this dish to the south side of the house when I get a polar mount adapted to have it motorized. It'll be the ku wild feed hunter when not aimed at 87w.

 

[danristheman]

Nice job on your dish there was that dish pretty heavy? How much concrete did you use on that pole?

 

[primestar31]

Nice job on your dish there was that dish pretty heavy? How much concrete did you use on that pole?

Dan, you are NEVER going to get anybody at your apartment to believe a Prodelin 1.8m dish is a Directv offset, lol. I know it doesn't seem like a 6ft dish should "look" so much bigger than a 4ft dish, but it's like the difference between a Yugo and a battleship parked together... The mount on mine is for a 7 inch pole!

There just isn't anyway you can camouflage that dish, try as you might...

 

[gpflepsen]

Nice job on your dish there was that dish pretty heavy? How much concrete did you use on that pole?

The auger on my post hole digger on the back of the tractor is 9" and was sunk about 3'. The pipe was 3". The hole was filled about 12" with tamped dirt, just enough to hold it steady. Two 80 lb bags of quick-crete were more than enough to top it off. There's a 1-1/4" conduit 90° sweep embedded to bring up cabling through a 1-1/4" service head. I can take a pic later if you want.

You'll need some invisibility paint to get a 1.8m past the landlord!

Sent from a phone, probably while I'm driving over the speed limit through a school zone with construction workers present.

 

[danristheman]

Well I was just thinking I guess it's just frustrating living in an apartment where you can't really have all that much.