Spring Projects Thread

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SatelliteGuys Master
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May 6, 2005
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Metro New Orleans, LA
Since its spring, and many of us will be working on spring satellite projects, I thought a thread on the topic might be of interest.

This spring, I have taken on several projects related to satellite and OTA reception. The first of these was supposed to be last years spring project, but due to motor issues it got delayed. This year, with the purchase of two GENUINE Moteck SG-2100s from Sadoun's clearance sale, the project can go forward. This project involves mounting a secondary motor and 3ABN dish in my dish farm, which will give me a total of two, identical motorized systems. Once I get the new dish and motor up, I will weatherize all mounting hardware with clear RustOLeum. I will then take down my current motorized dish, weatherize all hardware, and replace the older SG-2100 with the other new one from Sadoun. I should be finished with phase one (the new dish) of this project by the end of the week.

This is only the first project. Next, I'll install a motorized, long-range OTA antenna up in the farm. I am hoping to receive some of the distant digital stations from Baton Rouge and Biloxi, MS. Work on this project has already begun, and I can say, without a doubt, that the mad Conduit Clamper has striken again :D

The final project will involve planting a C-Band pole and at least a couple of Ku-Band poles in the ground near the patio where my shed (and current dish farm) reside. This project will entail uprooting and transplanting a small tree, and clearing out a lot of brush. In addition to the C-Band dish, I will hopefully put up the dish for PBS (AMC-21) and a dish (84e, courtesy of Stogie) for AMC-9. This project will probably go well into the summer.

Hope to get pics soon, Anole ;)
 
One of my projects involves taking this dish down and bringing it home.No idea what it is yet just that its 10' and they think they have the reciever for it too.I think this will take up most of my time this summer.Will need lots of help ;) Dark day for taking pics with crappy camera
 

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andyb2 said:
One of my projects involves taking this dish down and bringing it home.No idea what it is yet just that its 10' and they think they have the reciever for it too.I think this will take up most of my time this summer.Will need lots of help ;)
Click to expand...

Just brought home a ten footer on Monday, hope to bring home another ten footer sometime this weekend. Might get a third, if it's also free. One guy wanted a good amount of cash for his 5.5' mesh dish, and they are cute, but I walked. It's a "buyer's market", haha.
 
One of my projects will be to mount and align the 6' C band dish in front of the building. The 3" pole is already in place and the cabling is routed. I have chosen RG11 for this project for better performance. This will be used to demonstrate to customers some of the FTA Spanish channels available on C-Band.

Project Material:


 
My spring/summer project

Ok, so over the winter thanks to turbosat, I hooked up a fortec mercury II to my old primestar dish and I've been bitten by the FTA bug. This spring and summer I've got a project I hope to get started on and want to get some advice. You guys might remember my very first FTA thread where I was inquiring about the maximum distance for the dish. I'm looking at about 300 feet to where I need to go in order to get a good view of most of the satellites.

I've had some options come up in terms of what dish I want. My dad has an old BUD that hasn't been hooked up in years that he said I'm free to have. I don't know what size, but it's probably a good 8-10 feet or so. I think it's in good shape, it has a lot of stuff growing around it but I don't think there are any holes in the mesh. The only receivers he might have would be old old old analog stuff, and I'm sure it doesn't work anymore. I think it got struck by lightning as the reason he stopped using it. I'm also sure the actuator is probably bad.

I also have the cash in hand to buy a Ku motorized system and have been looking at some of the packages at Sadoun, but I'm not sure if that's the route I need to go in.

Which would you guys suggest for someone just getting started? Thus far I've only put an LNB on an old Primestar dish fixed at one satellite, and I've been moving it manually when I want to look at a different satellite. I'm leaning towards getting a Ku dish since it will be easier to setup than the BUD, although the BUD setup would probably be cheaper since I already have the dish available. Either way I go now, I want to eventually add c-band.

So here are my questions:
Which setup would be more tolerant of the long 300 or so foot distance? From what I gathered from the last thread, the problem with a long distance is voltage dropoff on the coax. If I do a BUD with an actuator and the individual wires for the motor, would that alleviate the problem with a long distance? Would I still have issues if I stuck a 4x1 diseq switch out there for a C-band LNB & Ku Band LNB on the BUD, plus a fixed Primestar dish, plus a fixed DBS dish for NASA? My ultimate goal would be to put the switch out at the dish and have only one cable + possibly dish moving wires run back to the house because I won't need more than one receiver
 
I've got to bury cables. I've added Ku to my BUD, RG6 is just laying on the ground, now I've got the primestar and the cable for it is also just laying on the ground. going to get some pvc to bury them and also have a place for further runs. also have to get a diseqc installed so I dont have to swap connections to switch between BUD and primestar
 
I'm not going to address the distance issue. 300 feet is longer than I've done, so I'll let someone else answer that.

I don't think CBand is harder to setup than Ku. Without a receiver to move the BUD (assuming the actuator works, which you don't think it does) it might be less exciting than a motorized Ku system for getting started.

This is my opinion: Ku doesn't have a lot of great stuff to watch. Cband has more. Without a motor though, most people won't enjoy CBand. I have one fixed cband dish with plans for another, but I doubt most people would find it worth it.

I didn't do much Ku viewing until I got a motorized system so that I could feed hunt. 123W is popular, but asside from the Research channel, it doesn't have a lot that I'll regularly watch. A bad movie now and again is nice, but I'm tired of the daytime courtshow fare. Feed hunting is fun, but most of the feeds I want to watch are in HD, and that's no good for me.

My recommendation is to do both since the BUD is free. Buy the motorized Ku. Do your digging and concrete for both at the same time.

If you really want to do just one, look at global-cm's CBand MPEG list and KuBand MPEG list and see which has more stuff that you want.
 
stray thoughts:

When someone asked a while back, how to put a Gbox 3000 dish mover out by his BUD, I thought he was nuts.
For your situation, it might be a useful idea.
Is there 110 vac available near your dish location?
I won't suggest running it out from the house - that's a whole 'nother project. :)

Post some pictures of your BUD.
Is it going to require relocation to your property, or is it already where you want to use it?

Hard to say off hand, which would give you more trouble:
- the C-band motor power
- the Ku-motor power
I suspect the Ku might be easier to get going, but not sure.
Either will be a challenge at that distance.
 
equant said:
I'm not going to address the distance issue. 300 feet is longer than I've done, so I'll let someone else answer that.

I don't think CBand is harder to setup than Ku. Without a receiver to move the BUD (assuming the actuator works, which you don't think it does) it might be less exciting than a motorized Ku system for getting started.

This is my opinion: Ku doesn't have a lot of great stuff to watch. Cband has more. Without a motor though, most people won't enjoy CBand. I have one fixed cband dish with plans for another, but I doubt most people would find it worth it.

I didn't do much Ku viewing until I got a motorized system so that I could feed hunt. 123W is popular, but asside from the Research channel, it doesn't have a lot that I'll regularly watch. A bad movie now and again is nice, but I'm tired of the daytime courtshow fare. Feed hunting is fun, but most of the feeds I want to watch are in HD, and that's no good for me.

My recommendation is to do both since the BUD is free. Buy the motorized Ku. Do your digging and concrete for both at the same time.

If you really want to do just one, look at global-cm's CBand MPEG list and KuBand MPEG list and see which has more stuff that you want.
Click to expand...
just by browsing lyngsat, I think C-band will have a lot more stuff that I want to watch. No HD for me right now, but that will definitely be a future upgrade.

Anole said:
When someone asked a while back, how to put a Gbox 3000 dish mover out by his BUD, I thought he was nuts.
For your situation, it might be a useful idea.
Is there 110 vac available near your dish location?
I won't suggest running it out from the house - that's a whole 'nother project. :)

Post some pictures of your BUD.
Is it going to require relocation to your property, or is it already where you want to use it?

Hard to say off hand, which would give you more trouble:
- the C-band motor power
- the Ku-motor power
I suspect the Ku might be easier to get going, but not sure.
Either will be a challenge at that distance.
Click to expand...

The BUD is at my dad's house, it would have to be disassembled and moved to my house. I could probably take a car battery out and see if the actuator will work. There is no electrical where the dish would go, so I'd have to run power out there by whatever method--coax, ribbon cable, etc.

What I did think about doing was dragging out 300 feet or so of coax and maybe putting a motor on the end of it and attaching the LNB on the primestar I already have, not to try to turn the primestar, but just to see if the motor will turn at 300 feet of cable. That would probably be the cheapest way to figure it out, without buying and setting up a dish, etc. and I'd only be out a motor, that I could probably unload on ebay or something. However I really do eventually want to get a c-band setup anyway
 
JosephB said:
What I did think about doing was dragging out 300 feet or so of coax and maybe putting a motor on the end of it and attaching the LNB on the primestar I already have, ...
Click to expand...
I'd run the motor, the LNB, see if the switch works, and check your signal.
And, I'd mount the Primestar on the motor as a load.
Sounds like something you wanted anyway.
And I'd get the big 380 motor from Sadoun.
That should handle any Primestar ya might have... which one was it, anyhow?
 
Anole said:
That should handle any Primestar ya might have... which one was it, anyhow?
Click to expand...

The round 1m. I'm not sure how I'd mount it. For it to be worth putting it on a motor I'd need to move it anyway, where it is now I can only see from 97w to 91w
 
Put it on the motor where it is now, and give 'er a test.
If it looks good, then haul it up to the top of that hill !
You'll be busy enjoying Ku, so just don't forget to do some 300 foot C-band motor experiments this summer, too! - :up
 
My main spring project will be getting my new 1.2 meter up and working as a mini-BUD. http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-air-fta-discussion/170540-new-rescue-nsc12-1-a.html

I'm waiting to see a few more data points on the DMX741. I'm really hoping to see some great numbers with the conical scalar ring as well. Enough people have ordered kits that in a few weeks there should be plenty of useful data. I'm just trying to decide if I should go CK1 or DMX741 with the conical scalar ring. Every percentage point counts when using a small offset dish for C-Band!

Also I rescued a couple of Starband dishes. Both Channel Master 75E molds. I ordered a couple of H/V LNBFs that should be here tomorrow. I hope to set them up as fixed dishes. I'm particularly interested in 103 considering the goofy skew and NBC muxes. We'll see. :)

I need to bury some conduit / cable and setup some switches as well for the fixed dishes. I want to support at least 4, possibly 8, receivers to as many as 8 orbital slots. The high number of receivers is purely to support several DVB-S/DVB-S2 cards along with BLSA, garage "radio" receiver along with family room, bedroom, office, etc.

I need to decide if I put 4x8 multiswitches outside, or inside. I need to count cables! :)
 
Per usual, I have more projects than can be done in a summer. Along with my satellite projects, I am building a home bar need to finish that. I also have a sun room/greenhouse that isn't finished yet.

On the satellite side, I'll be trying new lnbs, when the SG powerbuy happens. I'll keep on working on my home theater PC, in the hopes that someday, in a galaxy far far away, I'll be able to actually get a station with it.

I'll be trying a few tweaks for my Birdview dish, such as trying to reduce "slop" or play in the hh motor.

I may also try to add a motorized elevation adjustment to it. Haven't decided that yet.
 
JosephB,
Look at my recent thread, doing exactly that project. You won't need that mount, its an exercise in frustration trying to get it to clamp on the motor' shaft. Here's a link to my long-winded project:

http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-air-fta-discussion/170861-motor-setup-questions-2.html

the last few posts wind it up, and I put a pic of the final outcome there. Works very well so far. And with out that heavy mount in the mix, its a lot easier on the motor.
 
My spring project will include rewiring my system to use the OEM Primestar H/V LNBs on all 4 P* dishes with a multiswitch on each for Ku. I will also be putting dual-output LNBFs on both my BUDs (c'mon SatelliteAV, I'm ready) so 2 or more DVB boxes can share the 10 footer, and the 7.5 can feed all my DCII gear at one time. I'll also be retiring the old Toshiba TRX-120, since I have a Uniden UST-7700at stand-alone positioner to take it's place (Thanks Inno!) Right now, the old Toshiba just moves the 10ft, -analog feeds can be seen on the 920, on the 7.5ft BUD. And finally, my 4-way diseqc switch blew up a couple days ago so it's one dish only, for DVB 'till the new one comes in! :D:up
 
I hope to do nothing but enjoy what I've already got and keep it running lol. I'd like to get an real deal on an HD receiver by years end...that would be plenty for me. Blind:)
 
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