tragic event!!!

[eewizard]

last night it rained alot here where i live (hasn't rained in a long time so the ground was really dry). lately there have been a group of little IDIOTS who have been getting high and drunk across the street from me....last night while i was asleep they seemed to think it would be funny to hook a chain up to my 10 foot dish (pole) and try to pull it down with a 4x4 pickup....

my other neighbor who lives next door saw what they were doing and called me....but before i could get outside they had already hooked the chain up and started pulling at it with the truck.....

well...to make a long story short along with the help of my neighbor we jerked the little idiots out of the truck and proceeded to beat alittle sense into them....the others who were just watching took off when we ran out there....

even though we stopped them before it came down they still pulled the pole hard enough to make it lean and get "off center".....

i have been working all day trying to get the pole back level again and think i have it pretty much back to normal but had to build a large "box" out of treated wood to fram it all in and go about 3 feet up the pole to do it...took another 10 bags of concrete and i'm going to the store now to buy another 2 bags to finish it off....then i'm gonna use the remaining wood to frame in a 6 foot "square" around the pole and add soil to plant garden items in at the bottom...

best part is that the 2 who did it are currently showing signs of a good beating and are now in the county jail...both of them have multiple warrants from different counties in the area and are expected to end up in prison when they face all the charges pending.....

worst part is neither of them have any money to even go after right now and since they are probably looking at at least 10 years each in prison for the other stuff i will most likely never be able to collect any damages. i will be filing for a judgement to attach any future money anyone puts on their accounts while they are locked up...that way if they ever get anything it will be sent to me until the amount is paid off...

gonna check with my insurance to see if they will cover anything but i seriously doubt it since my deductible is $500 and it is costing me less then that to fix it myself...

well...i'm done venting for now....was just pissed and needed to get it off my chest....they just better be glad i was still able to think during my "anger episode" and did not resort to using one of my guns on them....

 

[sattec]

get my gun,honey. dammit.....way to go chief!!!

 

[whitewolf8214]

Take them to small claims court and give it a try and good luck.Give them jerks what they deserve and get any money you can get out of them and testify against them and tell the judge and bring the receipts to show how much it cost you to fix the dish.The judge may garnish there wages if there working or sell something of value to pay you off.Good luck and GOD Bless.

 

[charper1]

If anything else get something out of them AND their families and build a FENCE.

 

[sksatellite]

If they own that 4x4 truck, it worth some buck, can go after this.

 

[eewizard]

they didn't own the truck...but it belonged to a friend of theirs who was not there....in fact...that is probably going to be another charge on them cause they did not have permission to have the truck at all....after speaking with my insurance agent they said that the insurance for the truck should pay if i file a claim cause the truck was at that point considered stolen and the insurance should be liable for any property damage. i also spoke to the owner of the truck who said he did not consider them "friends" of his and has not for some time now due to their "activities". he said he had no problem with me filing a claim on his insurance to try to get them to pay and if they refused he also said to get with him and he would do what he could to reimburse me for at least some of the money i lost....so...there is a good chance i will get at least part of my money back....

only problem now is even though i can still get most of the sats in the middle range of the arc with 90+ signal quality i can no longer get the sats on the "ends" of the arc at all...i can get enough to tell the channel is there but it is just fuzz....so i must not have the pole completely level again...i just hope i don't have to take the whole thing down and start over...that would really suck...

 

[drhydro]

that really sux eewizard, i know how hard it is to set up a c-band dish. Hopefully you will not have to reinstall the pole, if you do tho you might want to consider a "mount" system for the pole, ie: put heavy duty bolts in the the new pole "base", weld a plate to the bottom of the pole and then bolt the plate to the base. This allows you to adjust the pole as necessary if the base should ever shift.

 

[charper1]

FYI just because you got it level again, how can you be 100% sure that the pole didn't twist as well; throwing off all your preset sat positions? i would start over again if i could do without the TV for 2 or 3 days.