Thread: what kind of pole do i get?

if i were to move a dish to another location and had to cut the old pole, what kind and where would i find another for my new location. i am thinking that i don't want to mail order one. shipping and all..... is a plumbing shop's cast iron pipe the same exact size or anything? and what kind of concrete should i use. i heard that fast setting can crack over time or something like that. well, thats my question i guess, read on only if you want my progress on this dish.

My dad sold out the C-Band world to the little dish guys! Anyway I am going to be moving the 9 foot solid aluminum dish, a 20 minute trip, to my house.

only ten bolts to completely dismantle this dish. heres how:
I took the four (could have been six) "set screws" (all of the nuts and bolts on this dish are 3/4 ) that are going thru the coupling looking pole mount loose and with a person on each side of the dish, we rotated the dish on the pole; looks like its ready to come off! i took the feedhorn and arm off just by removing the four bolts at the base plate of the feedhorn holding arm with an impact tool, while my dad had a backup socket over the nuts on the back side of the dish. i put the liquid wrench on the nuts just seconds before we removed them, and my dad said not to worry because the early installers said overtightening would warp the dish.

then i got the actuator arm (the mover arm) off by removing the bottom swivel bolt while my dad held the dish from dropping. took it off because i thought it would be sloppy. took the feedhorn and arm off because i thought i might have to carry it on top of my suburban. i was going to put two ten foot 2x4s left to right over top of truck, about eight feet apart, then put the face of the dish down and tie it all down. didn't want to bend the aluminum.

but now a friend is offering his pickup. who knows.. maybe i'll still use the ten foot 2x4s laying from the bed floor at the tailgate to past the headache rack. guess then i would have the "cup" of the dish up to the sky, which means my taking that feedhorn arm (messing up the focal adjustment of the feedhorn) was a bad idea.

im excited, i can't wait, whoo hoo thanks in advance,
somery

The Cast Iron will work just fine... I moved an 8' dish from next door by just setting in on the bed of my old truck, feedhorn up of course... I used qucikrete to set the pole and it worked just fine ( used a cast iron pole also from a salvage yard )

Schedule 40 pipe should be good enough, schedule 80 is great if you can come by it. I've had great luck buying scrap from well and pipeline contractors. Additional rigidity can be gained by filling the void inside the pipe with concrete, but this is usually not necessary.

Plain old ready-to-mix concrete from any home improvement center (brand names such Quickcrete, Sackrete) are fine for a job this size. You might want to splurge and buy it in the 40 lb bags rather than the 80 lb ones. The price spread is not that large.

Also blow some holes in the bottom of the pole if you can and put short pieces of rebar through to help keep the pole from rotating... (I did this on both my BUD's)

dfergie, thanks for the rebar tip! GrumpyGuy, are you talking schedule 40 as in white PVC plastic for the main mounting pipe?

Your Welcome Schedule 40 Cast Iron I believe...

Cast iron or steel ...

...and dferg's advice on preventing the pipe from being rotated in the concrete is important. If you can't do it yourself, stop at a welding shop on your way home with the pipe. With any luck they will take care of you on the spot.

Added a link to this thread in the FAQ"s ... thought I had covered this subject...

Wow, i finally did it and now have a good picture! Special thanks to dem0nlord for the quick response near or on Thanksgiving day! I was digging within minutes of your response :-) thanks!

I ended up needing a 4" pole. I looked to salvage yard poles and got one that was 3.5 inches Outside Diameter on one end welded to about a three foot length of 4.5 inch pipe totaling 8'2" in length . This pole made me sad. I mean, i can see through the rust and pits and know that the reflector and mount are used but this was bad..... anyway i lucked out when I measured the original pole without the dish and saw it was an even 4 inches O.D.

The rest of this is just my installation experience, only if you've got extra time, might be skim-over-able or something. The whole point is that i think it was all worth it. :-)

Dish move, i thought, was fun :-) 9 foot dish is perfect for a pickup (had a big pickup-type tool box, still fit nice) dish stayed in the lane easy enough. I followed the dish home :-)
Anyway, got a 10.5 foot long pole new from steel supply off beltway 8 and telephone here in houston. (they sell 21 foot lengths so i ordered .5 of one) didn't make em cut it. End of the day before thankgiving, i didn't want to hold em up.
So no priming or rebar weld-ons. Hope i didn't make a bad choice not doing that....The dish and mount are really heavy so i couldn't have the top of the pole more than 5 1/2 feet off the ground. So I dug down a little over 5 feet. 5 feet is really deep! I belled the bottom out a little, didn't measure the bell, but the neck was about 18 or 19 inches wide. Took 16 sacks of the 80 pound bags of concrete. There is still a couple inches shy of ground level, so i guess i'll put more later, I filled it with dirt for now. And there isn't any concrete in the middle, but i put an umbrella in the hole when it was drizzling/raining the day after i finished the concrete (i put plastic over everything too). The cabling is on the ground right now...guess i got too excited to see something to bury the wire...i'll run gray pvc underground this weekend, but i have to mail order the ribbon cable.
Oh and my actuator is malfunctioning :-( I ordered a SuperJack 24" The motor (and that manual turner under the cover) and everything are turning but the shaft isn't moving. I saw a schematic in the FAQS list, but i don't know.......hate to think i fix it and it drops my dish hard or something. Thanks all for your installation help! The picture quality is like dvd quality to me. Wow! I am glad I saved this dish from death, my mom was going to turn the dish into a pond or flower pot or something, she was going thru ideas! I said NO way!

I'll be getting 4dtv sidecar maybe to start. Wonder if the 905 has symbol rate issues like the 920? the wife didn't want me to have the dish. I got lots of silent treatment over this. When we (dish move driver, me and the wife) lifted the dish onto the pole up 5'3" from the ground we got back and our mouths dropped. Its huge! Lol I love it! It was worth every effort! Whoo hoo! I sub'd to Skyvision's silver package and added nickelodeon east.
Aaaahhhhhhh cband....i remember when sci fi first was coming on the air and those planets and stars would come to the screen like you were flying thru space. Always wondered what it was, then there was the countdown. That was cool. I can't remember for the life of me what the first ever show was! I think alien or terminator. But i watched it! Coolness guys, this 27 year old is loving it, thanks!
ps I got a friend looking for one now