Winter winds

[PANHANDLER]

This is my first winter using my 8 ft unimesh , i'm in a high wind area and i was wondering if it makes any sense to turn the dish in a certain position when the forcast looks grim ( facing , back to the wind or cross wind ) to avoid the high winds from doing any misalighnment ? Thanx in advance


Dan

 

[cracklincrotch]

I've been told that you should point it south when the winds are up.

Theory is, when the dish is pointed south, less of the face of the dish is exposed to the wind for the same reason the dish looks shorter when you look straight on it while aimed true south.

With my 7.5' bud, when the winds are over 40mph it will rotate on the pole. Never more than 1/16". Just enough to make it impossible to watch anything, of course.

Your mileage may vary.

 

[PANHANDLER]

Thanx cracklincrotch for the advise , in my area the winds are mainly dominant from the west , so i can see facing it south would give it a less profile . I needed to ask the question only because i hate the cold and want very much to avoid going out in a blizzard and fine tune .

 

[Cadsulfide]

Cold?

 

[cracklincrotch]

Cold?

Asks the one from ND. Me thinks someone is being sarcastic.

It does get cold in NY and here in NS.

And ya know that Murphy's law would have it, that on the coast here you get a bunch of snow that changes to freezing rain then to rain, clears off and the temp drops 20 degrees. Then try adjusting a dish. I mean, 8' of ice crust 1" thick.

I'm just waiting for it to happen now that I've said it. I'll have the camera ready for that.

In all seriousness though, I should add that if the weather does that go that way for you, you should move the dish so it is aimed far east or far west to allow the snow to fall off before it gets weighted down with snow/ice. That will help keep the load on the actuator to a minimum.

 

[B.J.]

Only time I've had an issue with wind, was when I lived down in Md not far from the water, and a hurricane came up the coast. At the time, after I aligned my dish, I drilled a small hole through the mount and pipe, and put a nail in the hole to keep the mount from turning on the pole. I went to work the day of the hurricane, and came home to find my dish pointing north (the eye had passed inland to the west, so the winds were coming from the south).
Anyway, the wind was strong enough that it sheared off the nail I had securing the mount. I guess I was lucky that it didn't pick the dish up off the pole. But the reason for posting, is that if the dish is aligned well, even if strong winds turn your dish on it's pole, you can get your alignment back quickly if you've drilled a small alignment hole through the mount and through the pole. In my case, I just got a new nail, rotated the mount around on the pole until the holes lined up, stuck in the nail, and I was all aligned again.

 

[PANHANDLER]

Thats a great idea B.J. i am deffinatly drilling a small hole for a nail this weekend . The winters here can be pretty rough sense i'm right on lake Erie , and when we get those lake affect storms it can get very windy and up 5 ft of snow in one night. It's true the simpler the idea the most affective.

 

[Lone Cloud]

If I lived in a hurricane lane, I'd point my dish straight up. I'm in the west and I have had winds with gusts just over 50.

I do a similar thing to the nail trick. I hammer two punch marks into the mount and the pole and I don't tighten the bolts down too tight. That way, I figure, if the wind is really strong, it will turn the dish on the pole before it sheared or broke something.

All that said, I never had to re align the punch marks.

 

[cracklincrotch]

All I did was draw some arrows on the mount like this:

| |
v v
^ ^
| |

Well, you get the idea. Did that three times around the mount. Besides, I filled my pole with cement top to bottom. Kinda hard to get a nail in there now.