Tower O Power

[Larry1]

Here is some pictures of my satellite tower. The top dish is a StarChoice (made by Winegard) 1m dish on a motor. It has a universal mount so it took some fabrication to get it to attach securely to the motor. This dish has an invacom quad LNBF. The motor has an arm attached to the mounting bracket to help adjust the rotation on the tower precisely by a threaded rod. It also prevents it from turning on the tower during storms. The lower dish is my StarChoice 76cm elliptical. The tower has been secured to the house as there is quite a load on the tower during storm. There is some slight movement of the top dish during winds, but not enough to loose the signal.

 

[raydio]

Impressive!

 

[Shawn95GT]

Nice .

I had ambitions of putting a c-band dish atop one of these towers.

Are you a HAM Operator? I think that's on of my next endevors.

Shawn

 

[Larry1]

Are you a HAM Operator?
Shawn

No just satellite. I started when I got my first StarChoice 921 receiver the second week they were available (1997). The local dealer did not get his inventory untill then. Since then I have been scanning the sky with a small KU dish. About a year ago I got a card for DVB in my PC, and then this spring a DVB receiver. I have a few 24" dishes and LNBF's, but the 1m on the motor works great. I was told when I first installed my dish that the pixelation was due to not having a large enough dish, so I bought the 1m dish. Too bad I did't know then that it was due to their poor encoding at the time. But having this extra dish has been great for this hobby.
When I first got my 921, I was able to point at HITS and get the free preview channels on one of the 24" dishes. I have a good collection of the Tarzan movies thanks to that. They are still great to watch.

 

[Diamond Jim]

Nice set up Larry, never thought of running them up the same tower like that. Looks like a fancy TV station.

 

[Larry1]

I did have a homemade antenna on the top of the tower for over the air digital signals, but the signals would fade in and out too much to leave it up. Analog TV signals are in the extreme fringe area for me, and with the digital signals being much weaker, their reception was too hit and miss. I will try to get a photo of my homemade antenna posted soon.

 

[snathanb]

I did have a homemade antenna on the top of the tower for over the air digital signals, but the signals would fade in and out too much to leave it up. Analog TV signals are in the extreme fringe area for me, and with the digital signals being much weaker, their reception was too hit and miss. I will try to get a photo of my homemade antenna posted soon.

I am in fringe area for analog tv reception also, but I get a very strong lock on all the digital stations where I am... Very snowy analog, but crystal clear HD OTA... How big was your antenna?

 

[riffjim4069]

Very nice setup indeed!

 

[Larry1]

I am in fringe area for analog tv reception also, but I get a very strong lock on all the digital stations where I am... Very snowy analog, but crystal clear HD OTA... How big was your antenna?

It was strickly a UHF only antenna about 4 ft. long. The tower does not have the height needed for my area, as it is only 2 sections. (approx 20 ft) I would need at least a 40ft tower to be above the trees to the south of me. (neighbours tree approx. 80ft to the south of me) Most of my stations come in from the south, and to my west. Unfortunately, I do not receive any digital stations from the west, but can receive the analog. I have a large hill about 1/3 mile to the west of me to go over. I am not wanting to put up another tower, as my StarChoice is working fine for the channels in my area. I would need a new tower of at lease 40ft (minimum) to get reliable reception of the stations to my south (over the lake). And then they would not there 100% of the time. I still would have trouble gettting my digital stations to my west, as they are just too weak. (see link http://www.remotecentral.com/hdtv/index.html )
Here is a link with the power of the various stations available to me.
Here is a map of my location attached.
With my homemade antenna, I did receive digital channels from Buffalo NY, Rochester NY, and one night from Syracuse NY.

Added a few pictures of my experimental digital OTA antenna. I first constructed it on a piece of conduit, but found it did not have enough rigidity once the sun got to it so I added the piece of 1x2.
Worked good for my area, but without the height my reception was poor.

 

[snathanb]

Gotcha... hills definately make things problematic for UHF reception. While I live miles and miles from the nearest station, I am on a high ridge.

That's a shame.... OTA is a beautiful thing. It reminds me of Directv when it first came out years and years ago.... nice clear, picture. Not the overcompressed junk they push out now.

 

[Mr Tony]

nice setup