10 Foot Winegard in Southern Cali

[goaliebob99]

Winegard Pinnacle CK-1088 10ft Satellite C Band Dish

Passing it forward!

Winegard Pinnacle CK-1088 10ft Satellite C Band Dish - eBay (item 330539250673 end time Mar-13-11 18:31:25 PDT)

Enjoy folks!

 

[Anole]

thanks, Bob

Button hook, but already has four stabilizer wires from rim to scalar.
Many great pictures at the link.
I wouldn't be put off by the rust on the mount - it's normal and easily serviced.
The dish is apparently aluminum and looks ... like new. -
Carlsbad, California.

 

[brex2001]

Winegard conversion to quad leg?

This looks to be a nice dish - if the rust isn't too severe.
Carlsbad is about 110 miles from my location, so I need to make an educated guess as to restoration.
With a F/D of .28, would this be a good candidate for an ortho feedhorn and would a quad leg conversion be feasible?
Some of the rusted parts I'm sure I could fabricate here easily, provided they don't crumble during disassembly.

 

[Anole]

The biggest problem is offering the $100 for a dish you haven't seen, and don't know about removing.

As for the rust, if you can get to the mount and bang the mount pieces firmly with a screwdriver handle, they should be fine if they don't fall away.
I'd use a drill 'n wire wheel or wire cup to brush off whatever is loose.
Then spray on Rust Destroyer according to instructions, which you can get at Home Depot.
I doubt you'll actually have to replace any of the pieces; they didn't look that bad.

There are a number of members on the forum with those deep dishes.
That's where I read they need a little TLC to get maximum performance.

You might want to review the pole situation. Digging one out is a bitch.
Getting home without one is worse!
I compromised on one dish which stood 9' in the air, and cut that pole at ground level.

See if you can go around eBay and contact the seller.
Both for a visit, and to see if you can get through to him with a lower bid.
I'm not expecting it to sell at the $100 price.
But don't get mad if it does...

 

[brex2001]

I'm not overly concerned if I miss this one....there's a 12ft Paraclipse that's already mine for the taking, but it may be June before I can get it.
I'd still rather put a 10fter on the 16 ft pole that is already there than the 12fter.
The seller already replied about cutting the pole vs digging it out. Cutting level with the ground is OK with him.
But he also said he won't assist in the removal. 2 offers already turned down.
Like you said, a road trip to inspect would be prudent. I'll ask for directions.

 

[Anole]

Well cutting the pole at ground level may satisfy him, but it won't do you much good.
But, I take it that doesn't concern you too badly.

 

[brex2001]

I'll go down there tomorrow & check it out with their blessing. CIF(cash in fist) speaks louder.

Did a little reading & found this about deep dishes/feedhorns/golden rings:
Best dual-band feedhorb for Winegard Pinnacle?

In the photos the scalar ring appears different than most you see today. Could it be? A golden ring?

 

[Anole]

Yea, I knew I'd seen both Linuxman and Pendragon discuss 'em.
Other member have that dish, too. Don't recall what they did for feeds.

I have a new C2 here in my hands.
If you believe the markings, you might be able to push it to 0.28,
At least on the stock scalar.

The orthos I have like the Chaparral, have pretty short feed horns, so they might not be 0.28-friendly.
I think Stogie5150 has a different (long-neck) C-only in the Classified - it might work if you're ortho-centric.

That gold ring is such a mythical animal, and Chaparral no longer supplies it.
I just don't know if it was hype or science.

 

[stogie5150]

Look over the mount real closely. I have the mount from a pinnacle that Hurricane Katrina twisted into a pretzel, and some of the mount parts are rusting from the INSIDE OUT. There are some drain holes, but its still rusting. Now, in Carlsbad I know there isn't as much rain and humidity as there is in New Orleans, LA, but still, something to look for.

 

[brex2001]

Look over the mount real closely. I have the mount from a pinnacle that Hurricane Katrina twisted into a pretzel, and some of the mount parts are rusting from the INSIDE OUT. There are some drain holes, but its still rusting. Now, in Carlsbad I know there isn't as much rain and humidity as there is in New Orleans, LA, but still, something to look for.

Hey stogie!
I'm planning on taking an awl with me to poke at the rustier parts for weaknesses. If there are soft spots I would take care not to bend the mount & remove it as one until I can fab new pieces.
The dish shouldn't be a problem being aluminum.
Having a home shop with bandsaws, a drill press & welder helps my confidence, for sure.

 

[linuxman]

My humble opinion on it is to take a pass.

This particular dish has two strikes against it.

1. It is a Pinnacle, which in itself is a great dish, but as has been discussed, the F/D is .28, and the only real feed-horn that works extremely well on it is the Seavey, if you can find one. Last I checked they were about $400.00. Yes, there are work-arounds, but none are exceptional. You can use other feed-horns, with or without the "Gold Ring", but the tuning is very difficult to do, but can be accomplished, with a lot of time and effort.

2. It is a button-hook feed assembly, which makes tuning even more difficult even without the extra problems of stability that are encountered with button-hook type feeds.

I have a 10 foot Pinnacle with the 4 arm supports, and it is a fine dish, but I remember the time I spent tuning it so that acceptable C and Ku signals were accomplished.

Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[brex2001]

Found the site for those Seavey feedhorns: Vincor Limited - Earth Station Antenna and Satellite Communication Product Specialists

Yikes! $400 for a dual feedhorn. 3 ranges of F/D to choose from to match the dish. Lowest is 0.30 to 0.34. Plus 2 Norsat 8515s @ $50 each.

Sure can see how all that extra length/leverage & weight of 2 LNBs would cause problems on a buttonhook.

I'll ask more questions when I get there about the feedhorn. The seller mentioned something about it last night.

I was doing OK with an Orbitron SX-10 "spinclination" that has a 0.30 F/D, but it was damaged in the recent 80 mph windstorm this January. Some of the hardware on that dish is in terrible shape. Dang "Lucky Baldwin" palm trees!

I really appreciate all the input guys.
Thanks!

 

[brex2001]

Inspected the dish today & found some rust in the lower part of the square tube mount(the part just behind the dish brackets), some pinholes going thru the metal, so this will need replacing.

Most everything else needs a good sandblasting & primer/paint to remedy the rust.

The feedhorn is a Chaparral single LNB with the buttonhook supported by the 4 guy wires because the plate at the center of the dish is rusted.

The owners are very pleasant people & offered all the information they could about the history of the dish.

There are a DSR-922 receiver(unconverted & last subbed 2 years ago with NPS) & HD200 High Definition decoder yet to be listed later.

 

[Anole]

Nobody in their right mind would spend $400 for the feed, plus LNBs , to go on that dish.
So, the real question is, how well would it work on a C2/242, or regular C-only ortho?

Also, how's the pole? Would you dig it out to get the whole thing?

And, maybe you can talk 'em out of the 922, if it's not toast. (?)
I wouldn't want one, but lots of folks would, so that might be worth hauling home.

 

[brex2001]

If I was able to get decent S&Q with a 241 on that Orbitron SX-10 with its .30 F/D, why couldn't I get reasonable results with this?
They are wanting to sell it to me from what we learned of each other today. Is the amount of work fabricating new parts overwhelming to me, no.
The footing looks to be a lot of work to get it out & up the hill to the street, so I'd just cut it off level & let them hire a laborer to finish the job of removal(they didn't object to that idea).
I have a 9ft chunk of 4" schedule 40 pipe here already. But I would still put this one up on the 16ft pole for my 55.5W to 139W LOS.
I would try to get the DSR-922 & HD200 if I can. Their agreeable folks.

Sunday is the last day of the auction. Wait & see.

 

[linuxman]

If you do indeed acquire this dish, again in my opinion, the smartest approach would be to measure the focal distance of the existing feed-horn, then remove the button-hook, and begin the process of manufacturing a quad leg assembly, and attach the scalar and feed-horn to the dish using the new assembly.

It will be much easier to tune in with something that is solid, rather than the button-hook that is already sagging, or they wouldn't have attached guy wires to hold it in place.

Trust me about this dish being difficult to tune in. The .28 F/D ratio means it is a very deep dish. There is very little gain with it, and it has to be aligned on the arc almost perfectly to get proper signals across the arc.

The good part about this dish, is that there is almost zero side lobe interference because it is such a deep dish.

I'm sure there are members here who have one of these with quad legs on the ground where they can get you measurements of the legs for manufacturing. I would give you the measurements off of mine, except the weather has not permitted for a long enough period of time for me to do much of anything on my roof just yet.

 

[brex2001]

Linuxman,
After having examined this dish I had some misgivings about the project, but, one chief advantage over the Orbitron is that it could be taken apart for transport.
I am really thinking ahead for the day that I'll be moving to the northwest. This year I hope.

I had already anticipated building quad legs for this to keep the feed-horn steady. 4 lengths of 1/2" conduit were on hand for the Orbitron before it was damaged.

I have reason to believe that new cell phone antennas were put recently causing TVI. This deep dish may help that problem?