Tek2000 10' Mesh Dish Install & Initial Review

[sidekick]

Arion, I just saw this great post and I’m thinking about getting a C Band antennae to use here in northern Washington State. How is the Tek2000 antenna working for you? Are you getting enough stations to make it worthwhile and do away with Directv or Dish? I’ve put up KU antennas before so I’m familiar with aiming, etc.if you’re in a snowy area, any problems with weather with a 10’ antenna? How long did it take for the total install? Thanks for hopefully getting back to me with answers to my many questions. Thanks!

 

[Arion]

The dish is working fine and has survived a few bad Michigan winters now. If however, you think this would replace either a Dish or DirecTv subscription for most people this is not the case. Free to air comes and goes, never assume that a particular channel is going to remain FTA. For me this is a hobby and always has been. There is always something to watch on C-Band and 'usually' the bitrate and overall quality is superior to anything on the subscription services. For many people though they are used to having certain favorite channels and the only way to guarantee this is to keep your small dish subscription. There are many popular type cable channels that you will never find FTA on satellite. It is what it is. I can usually find most of the college football games I like FTA on either C or KU. There are times in the summer that most of the MLB baseball games can be found FTA and lots of college and pro BB games can also be found but it's hit and miss. In short if your not particular and can live with what you can find there are many great things to see on c-band but for the average person who is not really into this hobby and if they expect their big dish to replace a subscription service they will be disappointed. For me between my dishes and occasional streaming or torrents of programs I like this works for me. It may or may not work for you.

 

[ZetaMale]

So if anyone is wanting a dish with a good product to value ratio. I would not hesitate to recommend one of these dishes. It came packaged pretty good too.
The only issue is, until they fix their instructions, is to not use the pre-drilled holes for the feedhorn/scaler rods. As mentioned in this thread, come up approx~ 8.5 inches from the lip and drill a new hole using a 1/4" bit and use that hole.

I hope that my 12 foot TEK is of good quality. The ads say it's a 2019 model. It'll be a couple of weeks before I can give you guys my impression.

 

[KE4EST]

I hope that my 12 foot TEK is of good quality. The ads say it's a 2019 model. It'll be a couple of weeks before I can give you guys my impression.

Yes, for sure. I am very interested in your experience with it. Please take plenty of pics too, from packaging to assembled dish.

 

[primestar31]

I hope that my 12 foot TEK is of good quality. The ads say it's a 2019 model. It'll be a couple of weeks before I can give you guys my impression.

IF there's any issues with workmanship, and you still decide to keep it, take it to a welding shop or whatever in your area, and have it fixed/modified/added welds/whatever before putting it up.

 

[ZetaMale]

IF there's any issues with workmanship, and you still decide to keep it, take it to a welding shop or whatever in your area, and have it fixed/modified/added welds/whatever before putting it up.

Hopefully, I won't have to spend any more money.

And it's interesting that buying the dish from Satellites-Gallore required sales tax. TEK2000 gave me a quote without sales tax but I guess Canadian firms aren't legally bound to collect state sales taxes. Anyway, there was a difference between antenna and shipping charges from Sallellites-Gallore and the quote I got from TEK2000, also.

 

[MikeI]

Our dishes are pretty much identical. We had the same length LNB rods and the same size dish and the LNB definitely wanted to go forward. So I looked at where you put your rods and you indicated that you went a mite far so I did mine just a little bit closer than yours. Instant huge signal spike and the LNB was happiest right at the .40 FD setting. Imagine that!!

Looking at your original thread along with reading his response on the other forum it seems that they measured from the apex at the back of the dish which is covered by the front and back center plate. And of course not knowing any better we install the center plates and measure from there. I'm right at 44" now from the center plate to just inside of the LNB throat. If it's expected to measure from the back of the dish without the center plates installed that is something they might want to mention. Experts with the dishes probably know to do that by rote but for novices we don't. So anyway the signal levels are now a lot stronger and I have the skew fine tuned and now picking up a lot of the S2 and 8psk feeds. I went back over the satellites I already found and am finding many more channels now. I still have to find every satellite in the arc which I'll work on this weekend and once I have all the sats I can get then I can do the process of fine tuning with adjusting the true north and then adjusting for elevation at the zenith and declination at the ends of the arc.

I wanted to thank you for documenting your experience as that showed me right where to look and you saved me a few days of frustration. Overall very happy with the dish as well as the quality and the wind is blowing pretty good today and the dish is rock solid. A real learning experience here and hopefully others can learn from the experience.

What was your final adjustment on the rods? How far from the end? When my dish is on 45 47.5w (dish goes right to the south in this picture) it looks fine but on 105w it looks like the picture attached.105w is my South sat here in NM
I imagine the rods need moving but where so it doesn't look like it's all crooked?
Bag around the lnb is just too protect it in the summer hot months since the cover doesn't fit the dish with a norsat.

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[(((Garyd)))]

What was your final adjustment on the rods? How far from the end? When my dish is on 45 47.5w (dish goes right to the south in this picture) it looks fine but on 105w it looks like the picture attached.105w is my South sat here in NM
I imagine the rods need moving but where so it doesn't look like it's all crooked?
Bag around the lnb is just too protect it in the summer hot months since the cover doesn't fit the dish with a norsat. View attachment 146225

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Does the back have clips to support the dish, if not look at the very inside ring all of the dish SHOULD BE TOUCHING IT; OR YOU HAVE A HUGE ISSUE OF it egg-shaped even at tiny bit will screw up BIG TIME

 

[MikeI]

The inside seems to be touching the ring. I don't see any gaps. Do you think the right side of the dish is just lower? How does that get corrected ?

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[Arion]

The LNB ‘looks‘ crooked in the holder but it might be the camera angle. It’s critical to center the lnb in the holder and make sure it’s equal all the way around the circumference. IE if on the top of the lnb it extends a half inch beyond the holder and on the sides or bottom it’s more or less than a half inch the lnb isn‘t centered properly.

I have not changed where the rods attach to the dish since the initial install when it was determined that the instructions that came with the dish were wrong.

 

[(((Garyd)))]

The inside seems to be touching the ring. I don't see any gaps. Do you think the right side of the dish is just lower? How does that get corrected ?

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Top bearing needs to be tightened, put the dish at the zenith, lift the bottom rim. it should NOT MOVE, IF IT DOES PULL the cotter pin from top bearing and tightened the nut don't go crazy then recheck if the bottom of the dish is ok find the next hole the pin goes in, and put it there, recheck if the bottom bearing is OK what wears them out "wind th dish is always being pushed by wind 24/7
I hope that fixes it but before you do anymore string the darn thing both inside and outside need help ask me

 

[MikeI]

The LNB ‘looks‘ crooked in the holder but it might be the camera angle. It’s critical to center the lnb in the holder and make sure it’s equal all the way around the circumference. IE if on the top of the lnb it extends a half inch beyond the holder and on the sides or bottom it’s more or less than a half inch the lnb isn‘t centered properly.

I have not changed where the rods attach to the dish since the initial install when it was determined that the instructions that came with the dish were wrong.

Where did you put your rods? How many inches from the outside? Is there a picture on this thread? I didn't see one

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[MikeI]

Top bearing needs to be tightened, put the dish at the zenith, lift the bottom rim. it should NOT MOVE, IF IT DOES PULL the cotter pin from top bearing and tightened the nut don't go crazy then recheck if the bottom of the dish is ok find the next hole the pin goes in, and put it there, recheck if the bottom bearing is OK what wears them out "wind th dish is always being pushed by wind 24/7
I hope that fixes it but before you do anymore string the darn thing both inside and outside need help ask me

String complete. Dish doesn't move. It's tightened up. LNB looks to be top right of the center point . I show f/d of 40 on the lnb which is straight in the holder.

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[(((Garyd)))]

String complete. Dish doesn't move. It's tightened up. LNB looks to be top right of the center point . I show f/d of 40 on the lnb which is straight in the holder.

Sent from my LM-G710VM using the SatelliteGuys app!

Well no matter what the Fd is there is always room to play with and find the hot spot of the dish I always liked a feed I can adjust how far out it went there was two kinds of gold rings made gold rings help to reduce the signal to noise ratio you can see it with a satlook

 

[MikeI]

I dropped the dish down to 43w. Here are pictures . can you tell what needs to be moved from these shots? Dish seems to not be warped.

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[MikeI]

Well no matter what the Fd is there is always room to play with and find the hot spot of the dish I always liked a feed I can adjust how far out it went there was two kinds of gold rings made gold rings help to reduce the signal to noise ratio you can see it with a satlook

I have moved the f/d. It's about 41 actually. Wheh the dish is up high the lnb looks off centered. Is that normal?

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[primestar31]

I have moved the f/d. It's about 41 actually. Wheh the dish is up high the lnb looks off centered. Is that normal?

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Sure doesn't look normal to ME!

Are you sure the scalar is screwed down TIGHT to each rod, AND, measuring at several points from rim of dish to rim of scalar, is it centered, for SURE? Perhaps some fat flat washers can help strengthen the 'scalar to rod' connection, so it can't easily shift just from different sat aiming angles of the dish.

 

[Arion]

Where did you put your rods? How many inches from the outside? Is there a picture on this thread? I didn't see one

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If you have a Tek 10’ dish you can see from the pictures on post #29 where I bolted the rods. About 2/3rd the way up on the ribs on the outer ring of the mesh.

 

[MikeI]

Thanks. I will take a look at your picture. This is the dish on 139w.

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[MikeI]

On your dish, the panels come together North and South. Mine are like at 30 deg angle maybe without measuring. Is that the problem where the whole dish needs to be redone and lines up that way?

Our dishes are pretty much identical. We had the same length LNB rods and the same size dish and the LNB definitely wanted to go forward. So I looked at where you put your rods and you indicated that you went a mite far so I did mine just a little bit closer than yours. Instant huge signal spike and the LNB was happiest right at the .40 FD setting. Imagine that!!

Looking at your original thread along with reading his response on the other forum it seems that they measured from the apex at the back of the dish which is covered by the front and back center plate. And of course not knowing any better we install the center plates and measure from there. I'm right at 44" now from the center plate to just inside of the LNB throat. If it's expected to measure from the back of the dish without the center plates installed that is something they might want to mention. Experts with the dishes probably know to do that by rote but for novices we don't. So anyway the signal levels are now a lot stronger and I have the skew fine tuned and now picking up a lot of the S2 and 8psk feeds. I went back over the satellites I already found and am finding many more channels now. I still have to find every satellite in the arc which I'll work on this weekend and once I have all the sats I can get then I can do the process of fine tuning with adjusting the true north and then adjusting for elevation at the zenith and declination at the ends of the arc.

I wanted to thank you for documenting your experience as that showed me right where to look and you saved me a few days of frustration. Overall very happy with the dish as well as the quality and the wind is blowing pretty good today and the dish is rock solid. A real learning experience here and hopefully others can learn from the experience.

Sent from my LM-G710VM using the SatelliteGuys app!