I've been wanting to see what's on 30W for a while but I don't have a motor on either of my Ku dishes yet; and the one I'd be willing to move is blocked by trees.
Searching and reading on Satelliteguys and some photos of Fred555's setup gave me some inspiration. I decided to try an old pizza pan that had been thrown in when I got the 7.5' Echostar.
So on Thursday night I removed the circular LNBF's and plastic Y-yoke from the pizza pan. For the linear LNBF setup, I used a universal bracket to hold the LNBF. The LNBF holder is attached to the dish arm by an extension with a slotted adjustment drilled into it.
I did some measuring and comparing of the old LNBF position to the new. Satisfied things were in about the right spot, I riveted the extension to the pizza pan arm.
Friday afternoon, I made a skid onto which I mounted the modified dish. Then I brought out a spare TV and receiver. I picked 97W to use for fine tuning the new LNBF setup, as well as to see what could be expected for Q on the receiver.
The initial settings I had for the new LNBF were pretty close. I messed with the height and distance for a little bit until I thought things were as good as could be expected.
Here is the 'new' dish peaked on 97W:
Elevation and skew look fairly normal while on 97W...
On Saturday, I moved the skid with dish over to an area about where I determined 30W could be found. I had previously entered active transponders manually into the receiver.
I skewed the dish to what dishpointer.com indicated and then lowered the elevation so that the dish itself was nearly plumb. I switched on the receiver and set it to an active transponder and watched the Q. I then lowered the dish and lowered it some more and finally had a lock. I tuned the dish a bit more and then scanned in what I could...
Here are some photos of the dish once I got 30W locked in on Saturday and one from today.
The LNBF arm extension was modified from a bracket I had originally made for an offset LNBF setup for one of my 1.2m dishes...
Searching and reading on Satelliteguys and some photos of Fred555's setup gave me some inspiration. I decided to try an old pizza pan that had been thrown in when I got the 7.5' Echostar.
So on Thursday night I removed the circular LNBF's and plastic Y-yoke from the pizza pan. For the linear LNBF setup, I used a universal bracket to hold the LNBF. The LNBF holder is attached to the dish arm by an extension with a slotted adjustment drilled into it.
I did some measuring and comparing of the old LNBF position to the new. Satisfied things were in about the right spot, I riveted the extension to the pizza pan arm.
Friday afternoon, I made a skid onto which I mounted the modified dish. Then I brought out a spare TV and receiver. I picked 97W to use for fine tuning the new LNBF setup, as well as to see what could be expected for Q on the receiver.
The initial settings I had for the new LNBF were pretty close. I messed with the height and distance for a little bit until I thought things were as good as could be expected.
Here is the 'new' dish peaked on 97W:
Elevation and skew look fairly normal while on 97W...
On Saturday, I moved the skid with dish over to an area about where I determined 30W could be found. I had previously entered active transponders manually into the receiver.
I skewed the dish to what dishpointer.com indicated and then lowered the elevation so that the dish itself was nearly plumb. I switched on the receiver and set it to an active transponder and watched the Q. I then lowered the dish and lowered it some more and finally had a lock. I tuned the dish a bit more and then scanned in what I could...
Here are some photos of the dish once I got 30W locked in on Saturday and one from today.
The LNBF arm extension was modified from a bracket I had originally made for an offset LNBF setup for one of my 1.2m dishes...