Recent content by DavidBodner

Hi Anole - I'd love to put in a nice plumb pole and add the positioner, but we probably are moving in a year or so. Maybe after we move to a more permanent location I will do that. The reason I have such a jury-rigged Fred Flinstone mount here is that I needed to move it around to several...

Thanks - I will check out that link for a generalized solution. And I hadn't considered that 4 degrees was a specific amount - I naively assumed that it was a maximum that was stated and that I'd be fine at 2 degrees. So much for assuming!! Get back to you all in a couple days after I digest...

Hi All - I have the extra supports done to hold my elevation steady, and I am now able to easily "turnbuckle" from 97W to 95W on azimuth and back again. All channels on 97W working fine now, and also have been checking out CCTV9 (China, English language) on 95W. The following link describes a...

Yes, Iceberg, the elevation effectively had sagged about 2 degrees because I didn't have heavy enough bolts in one part of the structure. I just corrected that, as noted above, Dave

Hi Anole and Others; This wasn't a problem in the turnbuckle system. The underlying wooden structure (basically treated 4x4s) had progressively settled/twisted ever so slightly out of shape. I was just out there this morning getting everything approximately plumb and reinforcing my fastening...

An update. There were two possibilities that were obvious after you told me that G25 was ok, but also it's now dark out - so I have to wait till tomorrow to complete the warm trail to solve the mystery There is an enornmous oak tree that could have grown? into the path, but I thought I had 6...

Thanks, everybody. Yes, it does sound like a hardware problem. But I just checked about ten minutes ago, and even the high powered scrambled stuff is gone?? The thing that confuses me is that when I do a fast re-aim at 101W ("fixed" dish) I get everything great. Without even readjusting the...

Has Galaxy 25 at 97W had a problem? It seems that there are none of my signals coming from that satellite. At first I thought it was my equipment. But after doing electrical checks, and then reaiming the dish at the satellite at 101W and getting channels, I'm pretty sure it's the bird itself...

Another possibility Another possibility here is that we all may be correct! That is, in addition to where the North Magnetic Pole IS and local magnetic disturbances - what may be critically important in all this are any large magnetic concentrations or depletions in-between the magnetic pole...

Anomalies? Hi Brian - I checked out that link you gave. It yields a very small change per year. But NG is showing about 25 miles per year, almost directly north for the wandering of the magnetic pole. Either I vastly misunderstand what's going on here - which is always possible! - or the...

Anomalies? Hi Brian - If you go to this month's (or last month's?) issue of National Geographic you will see that the only anomaly is how far the north magnetic pole has moved recently. And the clincher is that when I use 7 degrees I find the satellite I intend to, rather than a...

Wandering North Magnetic Pole This may be old news to many of you, but may be of interest to some. An article in the recent issue of National Geographic about the wanderings of the north magnetic pole got me to thinking about why I was always off by a few degrees when I wanted to aim my dish...

Hi rdel - I tried looking for G10R when I had the mount/dish in my "back yard." And I did find a couple others, including IA7, but the channel selections were few and not what interested me. I'm using a heavy ("portable") home-made mount for stability on the ground. It takes about 3 hours to...

Thanks for the comments. Yes, I can see that the GNF Movies will be interesting. And there's several cartoon channels, which my wife will like - and it hardly matters if they're in English anyhow. I have various S and SW "windows" through trees and I'm fortunate that IA-5 is "in" one of those...

Telstar 5 Hi All - I haven't posted in awhile - so I thought I'd bring you all up to date. After a slight pause for gall bladder removal in April, I decided to take over the satellite package my in-laws had bought because they decided to go with cable. I checked out several satellites...