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The story on this is that about a year ago I was driving by a house and happened to spot a big 10 foot C-band mesh dish in the backyard that looked (from the road) to be in halfway decent shape, so I stopped and knocked on the door but no one was home. So I left a note in the door basically saying that if they weren't using the dish and wanted to get rid of it to please call me. I stopped a couple more times and left at least one more note but could never catch anyone home, so I forgot about it. To make a long story short, about a week ago I got an unexpected call from a woman who said she was the fiancee of the guy who lived in that house, and she just hated that big ugly dish in his backyard (she really did call it a big ugly dish!), so if I still wanted it I could come and get it. She said he had saved my notes but didn't like to call people on the phone, so that's why she was calling.
So I went to get it and as soon as I got a good close up look at it I wondered if I had made a mistake. We had a real hard time getting it off the pole for some reason, but while we were working on it the woman came out and again made it clear she just wanted it gone, so we wound up disconnecting the dish from the mount first, then removing the mount from the pole. I figured since we were already there and since she wanted it gone so bad, I might as well take it even if it turned out to be junk (could always reuse the panels to repair another dish, if nothing else). I knew we were in trouble when we were strapping it down to the trailer and the rim actually bent a little. And the reason is because one quarter panel (the one that was closest to the bottom of the dish) has a VERY badly rusted rim. When I got it home I gave the entire rim a quick spray with some rust destroyer paint but even after that it looks like this:
I have two concerns about this dish, first is that with that rim so badly damaged is there any hope it will still hold the parabolic shape? It already looks a bit off to me; and with that rim so badly damaged there's not much to pull on if the dish needs to be pulled back into shape, and the panels already look a little "crumpled" in spots, but not horribly bad to me. And the other is, since I had to take the dish off the mount anyway I was going to flip it upside down so that the strongest part is at the bottom, where the snow will collect, but is there any way to repair that badly rusted rim first that does not involve serious metalworking skills? I don't have access to a welder or a machine shop or anything like that; I have basic homeowner tools like a drill and various types of saws but no way to form a new rim that I know of. I just wondered if anyone else might have encountered this and would have any suggestions on how to at least strengthen that rusty rim, if not get it into perfect shape, without spending much money. Or do you think this dish is so far gone that it will never work well enough to be worth trying to save? I was originally thinking of replacing my G16 dish, which is only 7½ feet in diameter, but considering the amount of rust and the possible deformed shape I'm concerned that it won't actually give me any additional signal strength. I don't know how far off from a perfect parabolic shape a C-band dish can be and still be usable.
I also wonder why just that bottom quarter panel is so badly rusted when the rest of the rim was in nowhere near that bad shape, but I guess that's one of those questions that will forever remain a mystery. It's almost as if that one quarter panel was originally pained with a different, inferior paint or something.
So I went to get it and as soon as I got a good close up look at it I wondered if I had made a mistake. We had a real hard time getting it off the pole for some reason, but while we were working on it the woman came out and again made it clear she just wanted it gone, so we wound up disconnecting the dish from the mount first, then removing the mount from the pole. I figured since we were already there and since she wanted it gone so bad, I might as well take it even if it turned out to be junk (could always reuse the panels to repair another dish, if nothing else). I knew we were in trouble when we were strapping it down to the trailer and the rim actually bent a little. And the reason is because one quarter panel (the one that was closest to the bottom of the dish) has a VERY badly rusted rim. When I got it home I gave the entire rim a quick spray with some rust destroyer paint but even after that it looks like this:
I have two concerns about this dish, first is that with that rim so badly damaged is there any hope it will still hold the parabolic shape? It already looks a bit off to me; and with that rim so badly damaged there's not much to pull on if the dish needs to be pulled back into shape, and the panels already look a little "crumpled" in spots, but not horribly bad to me. And the other is, since I had to take the dish off the mount anyway I was going to flip it upside down so that the strongest part is at the bottom, where the snow will collect, but is there any way to repair that badly rusted rim first that does not involve serious metalworking skills? I don't have access to a welder or a machine shop or anything like that; I have basic homeowner tools like a drill and various types of saws but no way to form a new rim that I know of. I just wondered if anyone else might have encountered this and would have any suggestions on how to at least strengthen that rusty rim, if not get it into perfect shape, without spending much money. Or do you think this dish is so far gone that it will never work well enough to be worth trying to save? I was originally thinking of replacing my G16 dish, which is only 7½ feet in diameter, but considering the amount of rust and the possible deformed shape I'm concerned that it won't actually give me any additional signal strength. I don't know how far off from a perfect parabolic shape a C-band dish can be and still be usable.
I also wonder why just that bottom quarter panel is so badly rusted when the rest of the rim was in nowhere near that bad shape, but I guess that's one of those questions that will forever remain a mystery. It's almost as if that one quarter panel was originally pained with a different, inferior paint or something.
10 Replies
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1923 views
Ancient, it's like making a hoop house without having to buy a hoop bender.Smaller scale of course.
Below is a photo I found online...Except I would make TWO rings on the jig so that your conduit drops down into a 'trough' for better accuracy as you bend it around.
Insert the bent pipe into both ends of the channel rim and add a couple bolts at each end.The ribs and mesh can be attached with screws or even pop rivets.
Anyway, just a cheap way to do it without metal working tools/skills.Hoop greenhouses are built in a similar fashion all the time .(1.5, 2 inch or larger pipe depending on the size of the green house needed)
Several videos on Youtube showing how the pros do it if you're interested.
Channel iron would probably be stronger and look better..but I don't believe you could bend it in such a manner.
Below is a photo I found online...Except I would make TWO rings on the jig so that your conduit drops down into a 'trough' for better accuracy as you bend it around.
Insert the bent pipe into both ends of the channel rim and add a couple bolts at each end.The ribs and mesh can be attached with screws or even pop rivets.
Anyway, just a cheap way to do it without metal working tools/skills.Hoop greenhouses are built in a similar fashion all the time .(1.5, 2 inch or larger pipe depending on the size of the green house needed)
Several videos on Youtube showing how the pros do it if you're interested.
Channel iron would probably be stronger and look better..but I don't believe you could bend it in such a manner.
I really wasn't going to use this dish, since it looked to be in such bad shape, but as it happened I decided to mount it on a pole and try it. I straightened it as much as I could, trying to get it back into something resembling the original shape, and came pretty close. A couple cans of Rust-Oleum Rust Reformer at least stopped the development of more rust on the worst spots while I decided what to do with it. As I sort of alluded to in my first post, I'm not particularly mechanically inclined, particularly when it comes to working with metal, but it worked well enough (probably at least as good as my 7.5 foot dish, and I know I can do some more tweaking to get it better) to try to do something to repair it.
The inspiration came when I was watching a syndicated home repair program that's transmitted weekly on one of the feeds channels. The guy in that show had to repair a support column with some rotted wood, not enough to replace the entire column, but after the rotted wood was removed there was still kind of a large hole. Now I thought he was going to use some kind of wood filler to repair it, but he used something completely unexpected: Bondo, a substance that is normally used to repair dents in auto bodies. He said that when it cures it's tougher than the original wood, and it sticks to just about anything. It comes in two parts, a white goopy substance and then a tube of some kind of curing agent. You mix the two together (there are several videos on YouTube that show you how to do it, just search for Bondo). It is not like epoxy where you mix equal parts, instead you knead the tube of curing agent and then use just a small amount compared to the amount of Bondo. You then mix them together completely. I do suggest watching at least three or four of the videos since they show you how to do it, and more important, what not to do (don't use too much curing agent, and don't mix it on cardboard or any kind of paper-based surface).
Since Bondo was originally intended for use on metal, it dawned on me that it would be perfect to repair the rusty rim - after all I was going for strength, not appearance. The hardest part of the repair was keeping the Bondo from running down off the metal, since I probably applied a little too much and it is a bit runnier than you would think. Ideally you apply it in ¼" layers but if you are impatient and try to apply it a bit thicker on a vertical surface or someplace with no support underneath, it will tend to sag or drop off after a bit. The solution is go in your kitchen and grab a box of waxed paper, and use pieces of wax paper to hold the Bondo and roughly form it the way you want (the waxed paper will release cleanly after the Bondo is cured enough to be firm). Even then you will probably still need to go over it a few times to fill in the gaps. Here is the result after a coat of black spray paint was applied, it's not pretty but I was going for strength and rust repair, not looks:
An auto body worker would have the tools to sand it down nice and smooth, and make it look like the original rim. I don't have such tools, so I used a surform-type device (a round one that attaches to a power drill) to take down the worst of the high spots, and then just painted it. I applaud you guys that have the patience to make stuff look like the original, but I don't, and the goal here was to keep the rest of the rim from totally rusting away.
One thing I did not do, that you are supposed to do, is sand the original surface down to bare metal. I did not do that for a couple reasons, one is that I had painted it with the Rust Reformer, which converts the rust to a black substance that I really didn't want to remove. But the other is that it would have been nearly impossible to get all the paint off anyway, given the original condition of the frame (how would you get sandpaper into all the cracks and crevices?). I figure that in this particular application it wouldn't matter as much, and so far that seems to be the case. If I were patching a somewhat flat surface like a car body then I would think it much more important to get the paint completely off, but here I was basically replacing part of the tube with Bondo, and it seems to have worked. The stuff seems really tough when cured, I would guess at least as tough as an aluminum tube, if not a steel one.
After getting the dish up onto the pole it became apparent why it rusted so badly. Most C-band dishes cover the ends of the support tubes in the center of the dish. This one didn't, instead they were left wide open so water could run inside during any kind of wind-driven rain or snow event. And, there were no "weep holes" anywhere around the rim of the dish. So I did two things to try and stop this from happening again. First, I drilled a small "weep hole" at the lowest point on the dish rim, so that collected water could drain out - and as soon as I drilled the hole, some water did come out!
The other thing is that on the back side of the dish, I plugged the ends of all of the downward-pointing tubes with Bondo.
I also tried to work some Bondo into the gap in the outer rim on the downward-facing side, just above the repaired section, so that water could not run down and collect just above the Bondo'ed section. What I was trying to do was make sure that any additional collected water has a path to escape, either through the weep hole or out of the gap in the outer rim. This may not be perfect (and I guess I'll know if any additional rust develops) but the real point is that this dish was poorly designed, or maybe poorly assembled, I am not sure which. If by chance you have such a dish, you may also want to drill a "weep hole" at the lowest point. Of course, if you plan on using a positioner arm to move the dish then the lowest point will vary depending on which satellite you have it pointed at, so in that case you may want to drill more than one. I'd also plug any downward-pointing open ends on the support ribs, if not with Bondo then with silicone caulk.
I'm not claiming this is the best way, or even the correct way, to repair such a dish but if you are like me and have almost no metalworking skills whatsoever, it's probably the easiest way. But before applying Bondo I would remove as much surface rust as possible, and then use some kind of rust converter product to change the remaining rust to something that is not rust. This may not last forever, but I'm pretty sure it will extend the life of the dish by at least a few years, and I can always use another C-band dish.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that I had removed the dish from the support ring, both so I could remove the rust and repaint the ring and mount, and because when we got the dish the mount was rusted so badly that we could not get it off the pole until we'd detached the dish (it's kind of a weird mount anyway, not like anything I've seen before, and also rather poorly made in my opinion). Anyway when I put the dish back on the ring I somehow managed to get it at a 90 degree angle from its original position, so that the rusty part of the ring was on the side rather than the bottom. This actually helped when applying the Bondo, because it was much easier to apply from the side than from the bottom up.
The inspiration came when I was watching a syndicated home repair program that's transmitted weekly on one of the feeds channels. The guy in that show had to repair a support column with some rotted wood, not enough to replace the entire column, but after the rotted wood was removed there was still kind of a large hole. Now I thought he was going to use some kind of wood filler to repair it, but he used something completely unexpected: Bondo, a substance that is normally used to repair dents in auto bodies. He said that when it cures it's tougher than the original wood, and it sticks to just about anything. It comes in two parts, a white goopy substance and then a tube of some kind of curing agent. You mix the two together (there are several videos on YouTube that show you how to do it, just search for Bondo). It is not like epoxy where you mix equal parts, instead you knead the tube of curing agent and then use just a small amount compared to the amount of Bondo. You then mix them together completely. I do suggest watching at least three or four of the videos since they show you how to do it, and more important, what not to do (don't use too much curing agent, and don't mix it on cardboard or any kind of paper-based surface).
Since Bondo was originally intended for use on metal, it dawned on me that it would be perfect to repair the rusty rim - after all I was going for strength, not appearance. The hardest part of the repair was keeping the Bondo from running down off the metal, since I probably applied a little too much and it is a bit runnier than you would think. Ideally you apply it in ¼" layers but if you are impatient and try to apply it a bit thicker on a vertical surface or someplace with no support underneath, it will tend to sag or drop off after a bit. The solution is go in your kitchen and grab a box of waxed paper, and use pieces of wax paper to hold the Bondo and roughly form it the way you want (the waxed paper will release cleanly after the Bondo is cured enough to be firm). Even then you will probably still need to go over it a few times to fill in the gaps. Here is the result after a coat of black spray paint was applied, it's not pretty but I was going for strength and rust repair, not looks:
An auto body worker would have the tools to sand it down nice and smooth, and make it look like the original rim. I don't have such tools, so I used a surform-type device (a round one that attaches to a power drill) to take down the worst of the high spots, and then just painted it. I applaud you guys that have the patience to make stuff look like the original, but I don't, and the goal here was to keep the rest of the rim from totally rusting away.
One thing I did not do, that you are supposed to do, is sand the original surface down to bare metal. I did not do that for a couple reasons, one is that I had painted it with the Rust Reformer, which converts the rust to a black substance that I really didn't want to remove. But the other is that it would have been nearly impossible to get all the paint off anyway, given the original condition of the frame (how would you get sandpaper into all the cracks and crevices?). I figure that in this particular application it wouldn't matter as much, and so far that seems to be the case. If I were patching a somewhat flat surface like a car body then I would think it much more important to get the paint completely off, but here I was basically replacing part of the tube with Bondo, and it seems to have worked. The stuff seems really tough when cured, I would guess at least as tough as an aluminum tube, if not a steel one.
After getting the dish up onto the pole it became apparent why it rusted so badly. Most C-band dishes cover the ends of the support tubes in the center of the dish. This one didn't, instead they were left wide open so water could run inside during any kind of wind-driven rain or snow event. And, there were no "weep holes" anywhere around the rim of the dish. So I did two things to try and stop this from happening again. First, I drilled a small "weep hole" at the lowest point on the dish rim, so that collected water could drain out - and as soon as I drilled the hole, some water did come out!
The other thing is that on the back side of the dish, I plugged the ends of all of the downward-pointing tubes with Bondo.
I also tried to work some Bondo into the gap in the outer rim on the downward-facing side, just above the repaired section, so that water could not run down and collect just above the Bondo'ed section. What I was trying to do was make sure that any additional collected water has a path to escape, either through the weep hole or out of the gap in the outer rim. This may not be perfect (and I guess I'll know if any additional rust develops) but the real point is that this dish was poorly designed, or maybe poorly assembled, I am not sure which. If by chance you have such a dish, you may also want to drill a "weep hole" at the lowest point. Of course, if you plan on using a positioner arm to move the dish then the lowest point will vary depending on which satellite you have it pointed at, so in that case you may want to drill more than one. I'd also plug any downward-pointing open ends on the support ribs, if not with Bondo then with silicone caulk.
I'm not claiming this is the best way, or even the correct way, to repair such a dish but if you are like me and have almost no metalworking skills whatsoever, it's probably the easiest way. But before applying Bondo I would remove as much surface rust as possible, and then use some kind of rust converter product to change the remaining rust to something that is not rust. This may not last forever, but I'm pretty sure it will extend the life of the dish by at least a few years, and I can always use another C-band dish.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that I had removed the dish from the support ring, both so I could remove the rust and repaint the ring and mount, and because when we got the dish the mount was rusted so badly that we could not get it off the pole until we'd detached the dish (it's kind of a weird mount anyway, not like anything I've seen before, and also rather poorly made in my opinion). Anyway when I put the dish back on the ring I somehow managed to get it at a 90 degree angle from its original position, so that the rusty part of the ring was on the side rather than the bottom. This actually helped when applying the Bondo, because it was much easier to apply from the side than from the bottom up.
ancient,
Your dish repair won't win any awards for beauty, but performance is the most important factor here.
Kudos for your efforts.
John
Your dish repair won't win any awards for beauty, but performance is the most important factor here.
Kudos for your efforts.
John
Supporting Founder
Pub Member / Supporter
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Apple has finally released their Apple TV 4K with built-in Siri and a microphone so it can respond to your queries even if you don't have the remote. It also increases in price, to $299. I had been planning on updating my current Apple TV 4K streamers, but that's $600 for the two of them, and that's a pass at this point.
At $299, it had better come with 256 GB of Storage, Gigabit (or better) Ethernet, the latest HDMI tech and standards, and one year of free Apple One. But it probably won't…
At $299, it had better come with 256 GB of Storage, Gigabit (or better) Ethernet, the latest HDMI tech and standards, and one year of free Apple One. But it probably won't…
Apple TV 4K
Apple TV 4K. New Siri AI and hands-free control. Stunning picture and immersive HomePod surround sound. Works with your Apple and smart home devices.
www.apple.com
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168 views
S
. apple's been making money off of software and not hardware for a while
they all do that anyways.. ever notice your cell phone slows down when you come up for an upgrade..
. apple's been making money off of software and not hardware for a while
The new curated multiview is now live.
While on many of the sports channels and non sports channels there is a multi view option button. It will pull up a side bar with many different multi view options.
While on many of the sports channels and non sports channels there is a multi view option button. It will pull up a side bar with many different multi view options.
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152 views
Supporting Founder
Really excited for this season with Kentucky having a new coach and some really exciting recruits. Probably won't last long, but here's hoping this season is great.
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1340 views
Supporting Founder
Lifetime Supporter
This thread is a place to discuss the 4K events that appear on channel 540. We are getting, at this point, one college football game a week. Let's hope there is more coming.
1931 Replies
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298840 views
Hmmm, I'm not seeing anything like those events in our Hopper 3 guide for tonight or Saturday.
I went into the Tools menu and requested a Guide Update. I'll try looking at it after the update completes.
edit — I now have the 148-01 4KFox events for Saturday, but not anything for 148-02 or 148-03 which don't even show as available channels. I do have 148-04 4KUSA.
As I recall you have the Flex package. Do you sub to multisport? -02 is FS1 and -03 is ESPN. -01 is Fox so you would get that if you sub to locals.Hmmm, I'm not seeing anything like those events in our Hopper 3 guide for tonight or Saturday.
I went into the Tools menu and requested a Guide Update. I'll try looking at it after the update completes.
edit — I now have the 148-01 4KFox events for Saturday, but not anything for 148-02 or 148-03 which don't even show as available channels. I do have 148-04 4KUSA.
TWiT Tech Podcast Network
Time for another AWESOME video from the TWIT Network!
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87N42NxLPC0
Direct YouTube Link - 8 U.S. States Sue OpenAI Over Safety Concerns With Younger Users
TWIT's Website
TWIT Live Feed
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87N42NxLPC0
Direct YouTube Link - 8 U.S. States Sue OpenAI Over Safety Concerns With Younger Users
TWIT's Website
TWIT Live Feed
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7 views
Pub Member / Supporter
On Tuesday, I recorded the first episodes of the new season's NCIS shows on CBS (Dish provided, not OTA). The new New York series and Origins will both do Auto Skip, but the original, now season 24 does not. What's stranger, when I do a search for NCIS, Origins and New York show the current recording and the next episode it will record, but the original show only shows the current recording and some other channel showing the very first episode of season one. It makes no sense. When I set up the timers, I was able to use search for Origins and New York, but for the original, I had to scroll ahead in the guide until last Tuesday when the show was airing. Then set the timer from there. You can see its timer type is DVR where the other two are Seek. What am I missing?
Thanks!
Thanks!
20 Replies
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385 views
Pub Member / Supporter
Cutting Edge
I created this thread on the original Edgecutter Cutting Edge Forums site. It's simply a place for those to review the latest software available for those using Windows 10 and Windows 11. To date it has received 112,559 views. I have been asked by staff to continue this thread here.
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47170 views
To each there own but I've found that Windows can't do much more than Linux can. Can't have everything.
For niche use cases, yes I agree. Kali for ethical hacking and security testing, and running a Cacti server for network monitoring are the two things I have experience in. Plus thousands and thousands of other things, but for every day use I just can't see it. The owner of the GMRS repeater that I pay to access is changing the Tx DPL tones tomorrow, while Chirp is available on Linux, the software to program my MXT500 is not.To each there own but I've found that Windows can't do much more than Linux can. Can't have everything.
I run Fedora and Ubuntu in VMWare, honestly I don't care much for the UI of either of them and I don't feel like spending days/weeks to customize the UI to make it look Windows-like when I could just use Windows. The cartoonish dock at the bottom of the screen reminds me of Apple products.
As I said above, and, FWIW, I run Win11 Pro and Arch on separate 250 GB NVME drives, using F8 to select which I boot to, with a 1TB SSD for storage, accessible to both OSs and a third formatted Nvme I want to use to learn Kali. It was much faster to setup Arch than it was to strip down Windows. Windows still takes much longer to boot.
Staff member
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Hard getting used to the new younger Gibbs, Mark Harmons son had the right look but I understand he didn't want the role.
Still I'm enjoying, pretty good job with Franks.
Still I'm enjoying, pretty good job with Franks.
66 Replies
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4210 views
Pub Member / Supporter
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17 views