The BUD is up!!! (Now with some pictures)
I've benefited much from reading about others experiences setting up their BUD's, and also from pestering you all with lots of questions. I thought it would only be fair that I start a thread on mine, so someone might benefit from my experience someday.
The pole went in last Sunday. It's the schedule 80 pipe I found in a scrap yard. This week while I was waiting for the concrete to cure, I painted it and the polar mount along with finding replacement hardware for all of the rusted stuff that came with the dish. In case you missed one of my earlier posts, my dish was given to me by a friend of a friend. It had been laying in the woods behind his house for 15 or 20 years and so the dish is/was in rough shape. The dish itself is an 8' spun aluminum Cassegrain(learned this from another member) style dish. Basically the feedhorn points away from the dish. The satellite signal bounces off the dish, onto a second smaller reflector that sends the signal back to the feedhorn which is mounted in a cone in the center of the dish. I'm still working on fabricating appropriate mounting hardware for the reflector, as that was lost somewhere over the years.
I just wrestled the thing up onto the pole tonight. It was a bit of a fight, but its securely mounted now. My first observation is that the pole is probably a little higher than it needed to be. The top of it is abut 7.5 ft. out of the ground, so my 8' dish is sitting quite high. In hindsight, I would have been just fine with a pole that was 5 or 6 feet out of the ground. My original thought process was that the taller pole would let me upgrade to a bigger dish if needed, so I guess the higher pole might still be beneficial.
Tomorrow I'm going to put the lnbf on with a temporary mount for the reflector that relies heavily on duct tape and spring clamps. I'm going to attempt to get the dish to track the arc, which I've heard can be a challenge, and if I get real lucky I'll install the actuator too.
Update #1:
Well after much trial and error, I seem to be tracking the arc reasonably well this evening. I've been using my analog receiver as my guide, and can get signals on satellites from 87 through 135. I still need to do some tweaking, but I think I mainly need to do some skew adjustments. I'm using one of PSB's ASC-421 lnbf's. Didn't get to the actuator today, but I'm going to tackle that one tomorrow. The analog receiver seems to be a pretty good substitute for a signal meter.
As for tracking the arc, here's the process I took. First I used a compass to determine exactly where 180 degrees, otherwise known as south, is. I aligned the mount so that it was on a north south axis, and then tightened it down. I anticipated that I might need to make some small adjustments, so I marked the starting position with some masking tape. This gave me a reference point when making later adjustments. Then I tried to get a signal on the closest satellite to true south that had an analog signal, which in my case is AMC3 at 87 degrees. The analog receiver allowed me to see the beginnings of a signal, and I move the dish until I got it as good as I could. Next I fine tuned the picture by adjusting the elevation. Once I had that one in good, I moved to G11 at 89 and then on to IA6 at 93 and so on. I was actually pretty close to right on with the first shot, however I didn't know it for a little while. I actually could get a pretty decent signal from AMC3 through G4R, but then had less success as I went west. I have a tree issue that blocks the signal from the area of AMC1/AMC4 at 101/103 until I get to IA13 at 121. When I got to the more western satellites, the picture was a little more hit and miss although strangely I was getting a lot of scrambled VC signals from 133/135 area. This had me really puzzled for a while as I didn't see how I could get satellites that were so far apart, but missing a lot of stuff in between. I finally realized that my skew setting was exactly opposite from what it should be. (Did I mention this was a Cassegrain style dish?) The first few sats had fairly small skew adjustments, so I think I got them because they weren't off that much. I think the transponders with the VC stuff on 133/135 are pretty strong, so you can probably set the skew to just about anything and they'll still come in to some degree. Once I fixed the skew issue, I started getting analog from just about everything available. 87 through 101, and 125 through 137. I'm not sure why I never got any analog from 121, but I got several digital channels on my Fortec so it must be dialed in to. I think the skew could still be fine-tuned some more but it's pretty close now. Incidentally, didn't I read somewhere that Chapparal makes a feedhorn with a skew that can be adjusted from the receiver?
The biggest suggestion I think I could make to someone doing this is to either use a signal meter, or probably even better an analog receiver like I did. I think it would be hard to beat having the tv and receiver with you at the dish as you make small adjustments. Haven't worked with a signal meter though, so I could be all wet.
Tomorrow I'll tackle the actuator, and then if that goes well start thinking about getting wiring from the dish into the house. It sure would be nice if I had some instructions for this stuff. My dish has none, and all the actuator came with was a wiring diagram. Guess that just adds to the fun though. It's all sort of a big jigsaw puzzle.
Update #2
Well, I finally decided to sit down and finish this.
The actuator went on weekend before last, and I was surprised at how easy it was. It was raining the day I put it on, so I hooked it up to the receiver out in the garage to verify that it worked correctly and also to determine how to wire it. I bought the VonWeise 24" 76-5 model, which I'm highly impressed with however it didn't come with much in the way of instructions. Of course, nothing on this project had instructions so why should I start with the actuator? After mounting it to the dish, I fired it up and found that it could easily move the dish around. I do think the 24" model was the way to go, as I'm moving the dish over a pretty large arc. When I get pretty far eastward, the actuator struggles a little to bring the dish back to the west. The 18" arm would have most likely shortened the arc I could cover.
After getting the actuator hooked up, the next step was to mount my reflector. Since the original mounting hardware was long gone, I had to fashion a mount of my own. I wound up using 3 strips of plastic, a cheap lexan competitor, for holders. I bolted them to the cone and drilled several sets of holes in them for making adjustments to the reflector. The plastic was pretty flimsy before the reflector went on, making me think it wouldn't work, but once the reflector was attached the unit stiffend up nicely. It took some trial and error, but I found what appears to be the proper distance (around 3 inches from the lnbf) for the reflector. I'm now tracking the arc with a nice strong signal from 87 degrees to 137 degrees. I plan on tracking on eastward, but so far I've stuck to sats that I could test with my analog receiver first. It definitely makes a nice signal meter, and the thing really lights up with football games on Saturday afternoon. One tip if you have videocipher module, even if you don't have it subscribed to anything, it can be used as a signal meter. Just tune in to a scrambled channel, and then click on setup and go into the installation menu. The module will tell you what channel your tuned to and also your signal strenght. This is real handy for identifying satellites and peaking your levels.
This past weekend, I ran the ribbon cable to the house and connected it to the house wiring in a weather-proof box I mounted under my deck. The cable is all nice and buried now and the installation is basically complete. All in all, this cassagrain dish is pretty nice. It's only 8 feet across, but due to the extra depth of this dish it does a nice job of isolating individual satellites. I suspect its performance is equal to a 10 foot normal dish.
I'm attaching pictures of the mounted dish. One of these days I'll have to get around to cleaning it up some, but other than a little dirt I think it looks pretty cool. You don't see a dish like this one every day.
I've benefited much from reading about others experiences setting up their BUD's, and also from pestering you all with lots of questions. I thought it would only be fair that I start a thread on mine, so someone might benefit from my experience someday.
The pole went in last Sunday. It's the schedule 80 pipe I found in a scrap yard. This week while I was waiting for the concrete to cure, I painted it and the polar mount along with finding replacement hardware for all of the rusted stuff that came with the dish. In case you missed one of my earlier posts, my dish was given to me by a friend of a friend. It had been laying in the woods behind his house for 15 or 20 years and so the dish is/was in rough shape. The dish itself is an 8' spun aluminum Cassegrain(learned this from another member) style dish. Basically the feedhorn points away from the dish. The satellite signal bounces off the dish, onto a second smaller reflector that sends the signal back to the feedhorn which is mounted in a cone in the center of the dish. I'm still working on fabricating appropriate mounting hardware for the reflector, as that was lost somewhere over the years.
I just wrestled the thing up onto the pole tonight. It was a bit of a fight, but its securely mounted now. My first observation is that the pole is probably a little higher than it needed to be. The top of it is abut 7.5 ft. out of the ground, so my 8' dish is sitting quite high. In hindsight, I would have been just fine with a pole that was 5 or 6 feet out of the ground. My original thought process was that the taller pole would let me upgrade to a bigger dish if needed, so I guess the higher pole might still be beneficial.
Tomorrow I'm going to put the lnbf on with a temporary mount for the reflector that relies heavily on duct tape and spring clamps. I'm going to attempt to get the dish to track the arc, which I've heard can be a challenge, and if I get real lucky I'll install the actuator too.
Update #1:
Well after much trial and error, I seem to be tracking the arc reasonably well this evening. I've been using my analog receiver as my guide, and can get signals on satellites from 87 through 135. I still need to do some tweaking, but I think I mainly need to do some skew adjustments. I'm using one of PSB's ASC-421 lnbf's. Didn't get to the actuator today, but I'm going to tackle that one tomorrow. The analog receiver seems to be a pretty good substitute for a signal meter.
As for tracking the arc, here's the process I took. First I used a compass to determine exactly where 180 degrees, otherwise known as south, is. I aligned the mount so that it was on a north south axis, and then tightened it down. I anticipated that I might need to make some small adjustments, so I marked the starting position with some masking tape. This gave me a reference point when making later adjustments. Then I tried to get a signal on the closest satellite to true south that had an analog signal, which in my case is AMC3 at 87 degrees. The analog receiver allowed me to see the beginnings of a signal, and I move the dish until I got it as good as I could. Next I fine tuned the picture by adjusting the elevation. Once I had that one in good, I moved to G11 at 89 and then on to IA6 at 93 and so on. I was actually pretty close to right on with the first shot, however I didn't know it for a little while. I actually could get a pretty decent signal from AMC3 through G4R, but then had less success as I went west. I have a tree issue that blocks the signal from the area of AMC1/AMC4 at 101/103 until I get to IA13 at 121. When I got to the more western satellites, the picture was a little more hit and miss although strangely I was getting a lot of scrambled VC signals from 133/135 area. This had me really puzzled for a while as I didn't see how I could get satellites that were so far apart, but missing a lot of stuff in between. I finally realized that my skew setting was exactly opposite from what it should be. (Did I mention this was a Cassegrain style dish?) The first few sats had fairly small skew adjustments, so I think I got them because they weren't off that much. I think the transponders with the VC stuff on 133/135 are pretty strong, so you can probably set the skew to just about anything and they'll still come in to some degree. Once I fixed the skew issue, I started getting analog from just about everything available. 87 through 101, and 125 through 137. I'm not sure why I never got any analog from 121, but I got several digital channels on my Fortec so it must be dialed in to. I think the skew could still be fine-tuned some more but it's pretty close now. Incidentally, didn't I read somewhere that Chapparal makes a feedhorn with a skew that can be adjusted from the receiver?
The biggest suggestion I think I could make to someone doing this is to either use a signal meter, or probably even better an analog receiver like I did. I think it would be hard to beat having the tv and receiver with you at the dish as you make small adjustments. Haven't worked with a signal meter though, so I could be all wet.
Tomorrow I'll tackle the actuator, and then if that goes well start thinking about getting wiring from the dish into the house. It sure would be nice if I had some instructions for this stuff. My dish has none, and all the actuator came with was a wiring diagram. Guess that just adds to the fun though. It's all sort of a big jigsaw puzzle.
Update #2
Well, I finally decided to sit down and finish this.
The actuator went on weekend before last, and I was surprised at how easy it was. It was raining the day I put it on, so I hooked it up to the receiver out in the garage to verify that it worked correctly and also to determine how to wire it. I bought the VonWeise 24" 76-5 model, which I'm highly impressed with however it didn't come with much in the way of instructions. Of course, nothing on this project had instructions so why should I start with the actuator? After mounting it to the dish, I fired it up and found that it could easily move the dish around. I do think the 24" model was the way to go, as I'm moving the dish over a pretty large arc. When I get pretty far eastward, the actuator struggles a little to bring the dish back to the west. The 18" arm would have most likely shortened the arc I could cover.
After getting the actuator hooked up, the next step was to mount my reflector. Since the original mounting hardware was long gone, I had to fashion a mount of my own. I wound up using 3 strips of plastic, a cheap lexan competitor, for holders. I bolted them to the cone and drilled several sets of holes in them for making adjustments to the reflector. The plastic was pretty flimsy before the reflector went on, making me think it wouldn't work, but once the reflector was attached the unit stiffend up nicely. It took some trial and error, but I found what appears to be the proper distance (around 3 inches from the lnbf) for the reflector. I'm now tracking the arc with a nice strong signal from 87 degrees to 137 degrees. I plan on tracking on eastward, but so far I've stuck to sats that I could test with my analog receiver first. It definitely makes a nice signal meter, and the thing really lights up with football games on Saturday afternoon. One tip if you have videocipher module, even if you don't have it subscribed to anything, it can be used as a signal meter. Just tune in to a scrambled channel, and then click on setup and go into the installation menu. The module will tell you what channel your tuned to and also your signal strenght. This is real handy for identifying satellites and peaking your levels.
This past weekend, I ran the ribbon cable to the house and connected it to the house wiring in a weather-proof box I mounted under my deck. The cable is all nice and buried now and the installation is basically complete. All in all, this cassagrain dish is pretty nice. It's only 8 feet across, but due to the extra depth of this dish it does a nice job of isolating individual satellites. I suspect its performance is equal to a 10 foot normal dish.
I'm attaching pictures of the mounted dish. One of these days I'll have to get around to cleaning it up some, but other than a little dirt I think it looks pretty cool. You don't see a dish like this one every day.
