Success! Alphastar 31" Dish and Stab HH90 Motor

[Davage]

It took some modification to the dish mount, but I'm very pleased that I am now amongst the group of motorized dish FTA'ers. I will post some pictures later. The problem I was running into with the Stab HH90 motor was that the dish mount was hitting the motor. I had to basically add an extension on to the original Alphastar dish mount so that the dish mount wouldn't hit the motor any more. My local hardware store had what I believe they call "mending" plates which are basically a small straight piece of steel with holes pre-drilled in them. Using 5 of these mending plates, I was able to extend the dish mount out by about 4 inches and it no longer hits the motor. It cost me probably a grand total of $9 worth of bolts, nuts, and these mending plates to do the job. Last night I was blind- scanning the Ku-Band skies with a big grin on my face the whole time. I'm quite pleased with my modified mount, but I'm even more pleased that the dish is properly tracking the arc too! I'll post pictures in the next day or two. The pictures will show exactly how I got it to work, provided that I can pull myself away from the blind scanning long enough to take the pictures.. My wife saw me blind scanning for hours yesterday and she asked me "Do I have to do scan every time I change the channel!?"

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[iafirebuff]

CONGRATS! Now the FUN really begins! I remember the first time I did a blind scan, and #'s popped up! I am sure I woke the neighbors!

[Iceberg]

welcome to the club

Pictures would be nice (especially sicne you had to modify the dish/motor to make it work)

[gabshere]

great work

[Davage]

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I went out at lunch time today and took a couple of pictures. I'll try get them downloaded from the camera this afternoon and uploaded to the site sometime today. The only tools required for my modification was a couple of wrenches, no hack saws, no welding equipment etc. It was all done using store bought pieces that are available anywhere. I'll post the pics in a little bit. The pics I took today were from the ground using the zoom lense. I'll probably be back up on the ladder sometime before the weekend to get more detailed close-up pics.

This basically has been my "FTA on a Budget" project. It has been fun to see how inexpensively I could pull it together with parts from here, there and everywhere. I bought the pole that the dish is mounted on to just this past Saturday at a weekend market. That was the final piece of the puzzle, so it came together of the weekend. Getting the Alphastar dish for free sure made the setup a lot cheaper. This isn't a route that I'd suggest for people without patience

[Davage]

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Here are the pictures showing my Alphastar Dish and the modifications that I've done to the mount.

I used 5 of those mending plates. 4 of them serve the purpose of extending the dish away from the motor by about 5 inches, and the 5th one that is vertical is for stability and to keep the other 4 from moving.

So far so good, it seems to have held up quite well.