My dish is taking a beating in the typical springtime wind we have here in New Mexico. No matter what I do I cannot keep it aligned. Right now my motor has been removed and my dish is fixed on AMC3 @87W. I was up on the roof Saturday tweaking and tightening everything and now it’s out of alignment again. It’s most likely azimuth, it always is.
I gotta tell ya this up and down from the roof stuff is killing me. I can sink a pole in the back yard but my LOS will be limited. I’ll be able to hit most of the satellites that interest me so that shouldn’t be a problem. My only restriction will be some of the eastern sats and I can’t get that far east anyway due to a 10,500 foot mountain in the way. I still manage to get to about 79W fairly easily.
My question is this. Would a commercial type dish provide me with more reliable signals? From the looks of things the commercial dishes have much larger pipe diameter requirements (3” vs. 1 5/8”) when compared to a standard residential setup. I assume this means that the associated mounting hardware is “beefier” and would hold the dish more rigid? Or is the larger hardware to support the weight of the heavier dish, or both?
Also, I seem to remember someone, I think it was rvpop, mention that his dish will “clamshell” in the wind and he has to take it down and straighten it out every couple of days (or something like that). That seems a bit extreme doesn’t it? Does anyone else have to do that? I’m asking this because my signals on 87W are a lot lower than they used to be even when the dish is peaked for maximum quality. I had been blaming the bird for fluctuating transponder power but now I’m starting to question my reflector integrity.
Comments?
I gotta tell ya this up and down from the roof stuff is killing me. I can sink a pole in the back yard but my LOS will be limited. I’ll be able to hit most of the satellites that interest me so that shouldn’t be a problem. My only restriction will be some of the eastern sats and I can’t get that far east anyway due to a 10,500 foot mountain in the way. I still manage to get to about 79W fairly easily.
My question is this. Would a commercial type dish provide me with more reliable signals? From the looks of things the commercial dishes have much larger pipe diameter requirements (3” vs. 1 5/8”) when compared to a standard residential setup. I assume this means that the associated mounting hardware is “beefier” and would hold the dish more rigid? Or is the larger hardware to support the weight of the heavier dish, or both?
Also, I seem to remember someone, I think it was rvpop, mention that his dish will “clamshell” in the wind and he has to take it down and straighten it out every couple of days (or something like that). That seems a bit extreme doesn’t it? Does anyone else have to do that? I’m asking this because my signals on 87W are a lot lower than they used to be even when the dish is peaked for maximum quality. I had been blaming the bird for fluctuating transponder power but now I’m starting to question my reflector integrity.
Comments?
