BUT WILL IT WORK?

[brentb636]

I'd love an A-10 shot for wallpaper. 4 A10's did a flyover at my Dad's funeral at Ft Custer Nat'l cemetery. Dad was a WWII pilot in the 5th Army Air Corps, flying B-25's in 41 tactical missions.
I'll never forget those "screaming" A-10's .

 

[MikeinBaja]

I'd love an A-10 shot for wallpaper. 4 A10's did a flyover at my Dad's funeral at Ft Custer Nat'l cemetery. Dad was a WWII pilot in the 5th Army Air Corps, flying B-25's in 41 tactical missions.
I'll never forget those "screaming" A-10's .

Here are a couple of my favorites (the sunset shot is my #1 favorite). The B-25 was a good solid airframe. Glad the guys could do a fly by for your dad. With budget cuts the way they are today, probably couldn't get that done anymore.

 

[turbosat]

What kind of pic, he asks? Hey, I'm 300miles inland, I'll take any kind of beach shot I can get!!
One taken with the dish in it was nice, something like that without any structures in it would be really great. At about the same time of day. And, congrats on the success with G18/G10.

 

[MikeinBaja]

What kind of pic, he asks? Hey, I'm 300miles inland, I'll take any kind of beach shot I can get!!
One taken with the dish in it was nice, something like that without any structures in it would be really great. At about the same time of day. And, congrats on the success with G18/G10.

As the man proudly says, here's your pic! Since (like you guys) I believe in delivering a little extra - custom shots (as best I can) for all who helped.

PS: That's a northern LOS look - dish is locked on 110 in that shot.

PPS: What's a guy gotta do on this site to graduate beyond "freshman"? I got an FTA rig up for $0! Freshman????

 

[Wescopc]

It is now on my desktop! Thanks,
Bob

 

[MikeinBaja]

It is now on my desktop! Thanks,
Bob

Glad you like it Bob.

Interesting, mama just asked if I'm going to do a permanent mount, expand it or just take the "bot" down now that the experiment is a success. Her preference is a mount - but she wants to see what we get for NFL games tomorrow on all the various locals.

I'm more than trice truely blessed, I married a lady that loves her sports coverage .

 

[melgarga]

Good for you Mike! The smartest move was to get the honey-dos done first. Redheaded XYL eh? Yup been there, done that.
One of the mods can tell you the post count switch point for the various member designations. I think you were at 39 when I hit reply so your likely not far from an 'upgrade'.
RE: Wallpaper - Scenery, cultural, doesnt matter really, just stuff I've never seen, and likely wont ever get to. Some shots of historical structures/ruins or some other unique architecture in your locale would be cool.
Congrats on getting up for $0.00 down, but now we've got to get you motorized on C band, which BTW the 6000 does very nicely too!
Reguards,
mel

 

[MikeinBaja]

"One of the mods can tell you the post count switch point for the various member designations. Congrats on getting up for $0.00 down"

Yo - board mods - Regardless of message count - let's look at substance - Mikey deserves a promo! Nailed an FTA solo on a cobbed together dishborg on saw horses in under 3 working days from concept - at a $0 budget - with decent pics posted.

Hell, it wasn't this hard when I was on the short list and made Major. ( OK, maybe bad analogy, flew my butt right off).

Hmmm, motor, thinking about a stop limited motor that will do AZ/EL and Skew - 3 way mover, hmmm. Maybe hydraulic with actuators? Hmmm - let me look in the shed!

Mike

 

[Anole]

. . . maybe some left-over A-10 landing gear . . . -

Naw, do it the traditional way. Much easier.
Congrats on getting it going.
Now check up to my previous post in this thread, and see if you want to try adding 125° to your 123°.

Love the new desktop!

edit: here's the thread in our Satellite Operations Center where we discussed new name/rank for members.
I did ask what the new list was, and where the cut-over points were, but didn't get an answer.

 

[MikeinBaja]

. . . maybe some left-over A-10 landing gear . . . - Nah, never bent an A-10 airframe bad enough to go to salvage. Bent 2 different 4's to absolute trash though. Not much choice then.

Yea, I always believed that if you are gonn fly 'em you need to know how they work. That way you know what all the pretty lights really mean.

No real mystery to electronic controlled hydraulic actuators - could actually work well on a dish and give you a 3 way controllable pivot (AZ, EL, SK) hmmmmm.

Mikie just may have a new project - need to look in the shed on Monday.

Back to sat Q's - tweeking my set-up on Monday - pixilation issues - start with SK?

What 125 bird?

 

[SatPhreak]

That's a beatiful view from your yard. Congats on getting it running. 125 is AMC 21 its got a bunch of pbs channels on it. No need for a fancy motor system, a regular polar mount type will track almost all geostationary sats. One motor and the az, el and skew all fall into place. You would only need a 3 axis system if you want to track inclined orbit sats or something that isn't in geostationary orbit.

 

[melgarga]

Mike,
No need to re-invent the wheel, unless of course you just like doing such things. Motorizing the geo arc is not a terribly complicated feat, and except for a couple of ill-behaved birds skew also becomes a non issue once tweaked.
The inclination and declination angles for a geosync tracking system are adjusted to, and fixed for any given point on the globe.
Once set, the process is handled mechanically and all that is needed is a means of panning E<---->W by motorizing the assy's pivot point.
This graphic - http://www.satelliteguys.us/attachment.php?attachmentid=25812&d=1213410144
is from this webpage - www.geo-orbit.org/sizepgs/tuningp2.html#anchor469886
EDIT- My bad, this is the page that discusses geosync tracking -
http://www.geo-orbit.org/sizepgs/tuningp4.html#anchor797917
and is the best explanation of the relationship between inclination/declination angles of a given Earth station and the geosync'd birds I have ever come across. This discusses polar mount prime focus [C band] setups but the arc tracking principal applies to offset feeds as well. The graphic is not nearly as fancy [or cool] as the sights in a HUD, but similar in principal, and is sufficient for the scope of the project.
If you intend to be fully automated [select a channel and have the dish position itself on the proper satellite] repeatable/reliable feedback [position sensing] is also a necessary feature, and is already worked out on the commercially available positioning hardware.
What you dont yet realize is that this is a fever and you have been bitten. To bring a station online at zero cost is a feat indeed, but it's not over. You have embarked on a quest that will eventually be for a fully blown TVRO station, and some costs will be incured. DVB S2 capable HD recievers are a bit pricey ATM, but when the XYL catches her favorite team in pristine HD, your rewards will be well worth the investment.
An S2 capable box is an investment in the future, because it is the next step for sat transmission, but most everything is still catchable with standard equipment. As soon as Echostar secures their signal, presumably in the near future it you can believe what you read, I suspect the true S2 capable HD boxes will fall drasticlly in price, once the 'One Eyed Wille' market is gone.

 

[MikeinBaja]

That's a beatiful view from your yard. Congats on getting it running. 125 is AMC 21 its got a bunch of pbs channels on it. No need for a fancy motor system, a regular polar mount type will track almost all geostationary sats. One motor and the az, el and skew all fall into place. You would only need a 3 axis system if you want to track inclined orbit sats or something that isn't in geostationary orbit.

I thought that 125 was "C" band only and was Galaxy 14? Reviewing it on "THE LIST" there doesn't seem to be much there - or is "THE LIST" stale?

Mama is happy - we got to see the Bear's game this morning via one of the local networks - so I guess we watched our first FTA thing. Don't have the unit permanently installed in the house yet, but once we realized we would get the game we just ran coax through the door to our LCD TV. Pretty good picture quality, even considering that I know I've got more tweeking to do on the signal to get the Q up.

How accurate is the channel listings posted on "THE LIST"? I originally chose the 123 bird because it showed the most english channels, networks and programming that I thought we would watch. Not real sure I'd find Dubai TV a must see.

Mike

 

[SatPhreak]

The list is usually pretty good but AMC 21 @125 has only been transmitting for a couple weeks. Both sats are at that location, amc 21 is ku and Galaxy 14 is C. It's not listed on lyngsat yet either, but I would expect both to be updated soon. The PBS channels are moving over from their old location of AMC @ 87.

Galaxy 18 has by far the most english channels on it. There are more elsewhere but they are spead out on different sats.

Pretty good picture quality, even considering that I know I've got more tweeking to do on the signal to get the Q up.

One nice thing about digital is you either get it or you don't. If you get it, you it at full video and audio quality. Nothing fuzzy with digital like analog.

 

[MikeinBaja]

Since 123 and 125 are only 2 degrees apart, would you think it would be possible to catch both sats on the old DW dish I'm using?

My logic is you can set 5 sats on the slimline - which is sort of the same dish shape - shouldn't I be able to tune the old DW to get these 2 since they are so close?

 

[melgarga]

The list is usually pretty good but AMC 21 @125 has only been transmitting for a couple weeks. Both sats are at that location, amc 21 is ku and Galaxy 14 is C. It's not listed on lyngsat yet either, but I would expect both to be updated soon. The PBS channels are moving over from their old location of AMC @ 87.

Galaxy 18 has by far the most english channels on it. There are more elsewhere but they are spead out on different sats.


One nice thing about digital is you either get it or you don't. If you get it, you it at full video and audio quality. Nothing fuzzy with digital like analog.

I'll take a snowy analog signal over a pixelizing digital signal any day. At least it's watchable down to the noise floor.
........now where'd I see that smiley of the guy beating the dead horse..........

 

[SatPhreak]

It depends on the size of the dish. 2 degrees isn't alot and on smaller dishes you can't get the second lnb close enough to the original. There was a thread a while ago talking about the distance needed from centre to centre of each lnb for 2 degree spacing. You might want to search for that first to see if you have enough room.

 

[MikeinBaja]

It depends on the size of the dish. 2 degrees isn't alot and on smaller dishes you can't get the second lnb close enough to the original. There was a thread a while ago talking about the distance needed from centre to centre of each lnb for 2 degree spacing. You might want to search for that first to see if you have enough room.

Was doing some browsing - ran across a REAL satbot built out of an old DW dish. This looks interesting.

 

[turbosat]

Nice picture, I like the big bird landing on the beach, and the tiny little people beside the huge dish!

 

[melgarga]

Dead horse smiley

This will do nicely!
One for the smiley repository if the admin/mods want to add it.
http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/879/beatdeadhorsegl7.gif