10ft Unimesh Setup/Install

[Lone Gunman]

UPDATE:

Friday evening I did some welding on my dish moving post assembly and made it much stronger at the base. I welded in 3 gussets and it's a lot steadier now without the chains on it. Also welded some large nuts on the post just below the polar mount sleeve so I would have a place to fasten the chains back on but still be able to rotate the mount on the post.

Then I moved the trailer over beside the SAMI dish and got the post plumb so I could tweak it in using the SAMI as a reference. That, and knowing that it was likely parked on a satellite when they stopped using it I thought it would be easy to get it to lock that satellite if I knew which one it was. So I rotated that dish on the post to "somewhat" match the SAMI then I kept moving the SAMI down until I got to where the two dish angles matched and I wound up with 123w? Didn't this use to be F4?? Ennywho, I moved the SAMI up to 121w and down to 125w and the angles just didn't look right so I decided that it must be on 123w.

Saturday evening I pulled that old one piece Chaparral feed horn off after measuring the distance to the dish. I have an ESX241 LNBF as a test spare and also have extra scaler rings so I did some figuring and then mounted that ESX and new scaler ring.

This morning I took a small TV and my AZ Elite (RF Output) out and connected everything up at the trailer but don't have a way to move the dish yet. I wanted to see if I was on the correct satellite before I went any further. Turned everything on and after boot it was showing me JLTV on 123w on that "new to me" 10ft Unimesh!!! AND I HAVEN'T EVEN TWEAKED ON IT YET?? Needless to say I was excited to see this new dish come to life and now I'm even more excited about getting it mounted on it's new post home!! I'll wait until this afternoon as the sun is shining so bright on the TV now that I can hardly see what's on it. That and I've already had numerous skin cancers removed and don't want any more.

I may go ahead and run power to the actuator as I've got a spare Vbox X that I could use to do some further testing before the move. That and I've also got another rebuilt 24" 10 magnet Von Weise mover with a brass nut that will wind up on this dish.

IMHO, getting hold of a local dish is a BIG advantage in that if it was setup on a plumb post to begin with and you're new home post is plumb as well it can be a "cake walk" getting these things working again. All 3 of the dishes I have now were previously setup at another location so I haven't had to set one up from scratch yet, and with the addition of this 10 footer, I probably never will.

To Be Continued:

 

[Lone Gunman]

The dish actuator on that Unimesh was toast! There's about 1/16 inch of slack in the nut and the end where the heim joint goes is loose inside the inner tube so it got replaced yesterday evening and a rebuilt Von Weise is now in it's place.

Ran some temporary wiring to it so I could move that dish and then spent some time tweaking the LNBF. Looks like I made somewhat of a miscalculation on the depth of that LNBF so I'm going to have to move the button hook out about a half inch. Hope that adjustment nut will come loose!! I've been spraying it down with WD40 so maybe it will loosen without breaking.

And BTW, is there a "set" amount that the feed horn should extend out of the scaler ring?? The other two dishes I have show about 1/2 to 5/8" sticking out. Is this considered to be "normal"?

Ennywho, I did start setting up satellite positions in that spare Vbox X and I got about a dozen or more locations done but going West it lost Q and once I past 131w there was no signal to receive. Back East I had signal to 78w (due south) and I stopped there so it looks like I need to turn that dish on the post a bit today as I ran out of daylight yesterday evening.

Oh, and I did watch some ReelzTV on it last night while the race was on the SAMI system!

And one last question and I'm going back to bed. Have any of you converted these old dishes from a button hook LNBF holder to one with the 3 or 4 support tubes to the outside of the dish?? And if you did, was it worth the trouble?

 

[FaT Air]

is there a "set" amount that the feed horn should extend out of the scaler ring??

Depends on the F/D ratio. F/D setting should be marked on the side of the feeds throat. It aligns with the back surface of the scalar.

Have any of you converted these old dishes from a button hook LNBF holder to one with the 3 or 4 support tubes to the outside of the dish??

If the button hook is unstable you'll see an improvement. If it's stable by itself don't think there will be any noticeable benefit. An alternative to a complete 'overhaul' is adding guy wires.
One way to detect instability, is to attach strings(like guy wires) and watch their tension as dish is moved from extreme E to W. One tip off of instability would be a dish that just doesn't want to tune up. It will appear as if the declination is off. It will probably track on side of the arc fairly well, but the opposite will be way off(in azimuth) at the extreme end.

 

[Lone Gunman]

Thanks for the reply Phat Air.

This dish had a one piece Chaparral feed horn/scaler so I had to replace that with one I had on that 6ft dish, which wasn't a direct replacement BTW. I did some machine work on that one and it has about 3/8" of the feed horn out of the scaler now. And BTW, I never use those numbers on the LNBFs but instead just move it in and out until it peaks on Q.

RE: Button hook? Yeah I'm having some problems with this dish tracking across the arc?? Seems to do well from around 91w back to 131w then it doesn't get a signal any further West. Along with the linear actuator being worn out I'm also seeing somewhat more play in the polar mount to dish hinge point also?? In fact, some pieces of that polar mount appear to be bent. I took some pics today and will post them tomorrow and I hope someone else has one of these and can confirm whether what I have is OK or not.

This dish, probably like many back in the day, was setup to only track a few satellites that actually had programming on them. I expect this one I have only tracked 4 or 5 satellites on the West end when it was in use.

I'll get some pics up in the morning.

 

[Lone Gunman]

Does anyone on here have an old style 10 ft Unimesh dish with a button hook LNB mount? I've got one of those and something just doesn't look right with the polar mount. This first picture is of the top of that mount. Notice how the pivot mount isn't flat all the way to the welded area at the cross brace??

Second picture is of the lower pivot mount and it looks to be bent also.

So if someone has one of these, could you look at these pictures and then look at your mount and let me know if they match? Also could you check to see how much movement you have between the pivot mount and the piece it is fastened too??

Here's a picture of it from behind.

 

[Magic Static]

I would say that is normal. This is because of the declination angle

 

[KE4EST]

This was broke off the how to move a dish thread at ops request.

 

[FaT Air]

Did you attempt to adjust azimuth @ 131W? Could be it's just the azimuth that is off, performance falling off enough to loose 133W and further, but close enough to 'get down' to 131.
I suspect that the bends, or being not perpendicular, won't affect tracking. But I'd double check that the dish is square to the dish ring. That would affect the declination. Put it up at zenith, measure angle of dish ring, then of the face of the dish. (Some kind of straight edge vertical across face of dish)
Could do this at zenith and far east and west so see if 'something else' is deforming.
Then check that the feed is centered over the dish. Measure 3 points around the circumference of the dish to the scalar. Could be done at extreme E and W and zenith, to see if IT is moving around. (strings to the perimeter from the scalar, from other thread, watching their tension as an alternative 'means') Could use guy wires to 'hold position' permanently, or long enough to fabricate a multi-leg solution.
Any 'slop' in the polar pivot is also a problem as it will throw tracking 'out the window'.

 

[Lone Gunman]

Thanks for the suggestions Phat! I'll get back on it in a day or so. There comes a time when you need to walk away then come back with a clear head, if that's possible at 67 that is!! I do plan to mess with the elevation and declination some more as those numbers were off a fair amount when I started.

Yeah, the slop in that pivot has me worried as it would be a bitch to try to fix that with the assembly welded together and all those bolts rusted to crap!!

Also I can see a MAJOR advantage of having multiple arms holding that scaler ring as that would also help keep the dish from deforming along with holding the LNBF much better too. I've got to be careful here though as I'm notorious for over engineering stuff and I'm sure I could go off on this project very easily.

I'll let you all know what I find when I get time to get back on it.

 

[Lone Gunman]

Well, I broke down and went ahead and pulled that lower pivot bracket off the other day and reformed it so it will work better. Here's a pick of that thing before and after.

And here's the after picture

Turns out that the lower pivot has a brass bushing in it so I'm going to "assume" that the upper does also. Part of the problem was that the whole thing was LOOSE. This one is made different from both my SAMI and the Winegard in that it has separate bolts for top and bottom with the bottom one being welded to the lower plate of that 3" square tube. It has been running loose for so long that it had worn that plate some but after I straightened it out and tightened the bolts down some it works much better now!! In fact, that lower bushing wasn't worn much at all.

Ennywho, now I've got to go back and start tracking the arc again since everything has moved around when going from loose to tight. Right now I've got a couple of satellites that have TPs showing 100% on both S and Q via that AZ Elite, which is as good or better than what the Winegard is. Still have somewhat lower Q readings on the ends of the arc though so I'll have to do some adjusting to get those right. Good news though is that I think this button hook "might" be OK as I wouldn't get that kind of Q if there was anything major wrong with it.

To be continued as weather permits, ie, phat boi doesn't work much in the hot sun!!

 

[turbosat]

I've seen some that looked like that too, you'd swear they'd fallen down and got bent. One I through away, the polar mount at least, not the dish, because I had a spare polar mount at that time. It never would track right, and I couldn't figure out why. After seeing your story, I think I know-that major slop in the pivot point bolt. Or bushing, or whatever it was, not engineer enough to figure it out, hehe. Looking better for your dish's future now!

 

[Lone Gunman]

UPDATE: Well, I finally got some time and decent weather (between thunder storms) yesterday and actually got this Unimesh dish up and running, sort of! With my SAMI system smoking a transformer in it's Vbox X yesterday evening I no longer have a spare Vbox so that forces this Unimesh into service a little sooner. Looks much better on that 24" HD TV though instead of that 12" portable I've been squinting at for the last week or so!

I'm still working on fine tuning the arc in but I've got sats that I can view from 45w back to 133w and hopefully with a little more tweaking I'll be able to also get 137w and down to 139w as well. Not much of anything I usually watch on those but I like to have them tweaked in just the same as they're part of the arc and should be there when the fine tuning is finished.

I'll probably get some time to work on it today so it won't be long until it's transferred to it's new home on that post next to my house where the SAMI is mounted.

Anyone want a 7.5ft SAMI dish that works REAL well?

 

[Lone Gunman]

Well, I've pretty much got this thing tweaked in on it's temporary mount but I'm not real impressed with what I'm seeing now. That mux on 133w that I couldn't get with the SAMI remains out of reach on this Unimesh also?? CRAP, as that was my primary reason for replacing that SAMI dish!

Right now I'm seeing 43w back to 139w but can't get a sniff on 137w for some reason?? Q readings are pretty much in the low to mid 70s across the arc and lifting or pushing down on the dish at various sat locations only makes the signal worse so it seems to be tracking the arc OK. I've tried a couple of minor tweaks on both elevation and declination and neither help the Q readings any.

I'm going to do some tweaking on the LNBF in the next few days to see if I can get it any better but as of right now it's not looking all that good. If tweaking doesn't help then I'll start doing some of those system checks Phat Air posted last week to see if the dish is warped or the button hook is out of kilter.

 

[Lone Gunman]

Well, this hasn't gone the way I hoped as I was planning to have this dish mounted on it's new home by now? Continued problems trying to tweak in satellites below 131w have had me running in circles for the better part of about 10 days. I switched over to the AZBox Elite as it seems to have a more sensitive tuner than the S9 and signal strength (Q mainly) hasn't been anywhere near mid 70s to date on those lower west satellites. Best I've been able to get is mid to upper 50s Q but that's about it. I've gone back and setup from scratch at least 3 times using different elevation settings and even more declination settings to no avail. On 43w back to 131w I've seen Q numbers as high as 100% on 121w and the lowest of the others being mid 70s Q so one would "assume" that the FD on the LNBF is somewhat close. Still not able to get a sniff on 137w either? Which brings me to my next problem.

With this dish setup on that car trailer, there's no way I can get high enough up to do the string tests on it as I'm not too comfortable being up on a ladder setup on a trailer at this point in my life and I don't want to shorten up what's left with a fall. That and where this dish is going to be setup there's pretty much no way to access it from a tall enough ladder either as it will be mounted on a hill side which had aggregate stone on it so there's nowhere to put a ladder. I have considered swapping it out with the Winegard dish, which is on level ground but that one ain't broke so I'm not real keen on trying to "fix it".

So I'm going to have to do some thinking on this before I do anything else.

Ain't this FTA hobby grand?

 

[catthepatch]

Could you not use 2 ladders and a couple of sturdy 2x8s fastened together to stradle the trailer? Kind of like a painters scaffold?
Just a thought...

Happy Testing!!!

 

[Lone Gunman]

Nah catthepatch. Only have one ladder and I'd still be skeerd to try that at my age. I'll be 68 come September and from what I've heard, old bones don't heal as quickly as younger ones!

OBSERVATION: Just did took some readings from that Winegard system using the Ultra and I'm getting 80%Q on 139w TP 3951. The best that Unimesh will do with the Elite is 58. Hooked up on the S9 on the Winegard system and that Q number goes down to 75%.

But here's the kicker. Up on 121w I'm getting 100%Q on 3714 with both the Unimesh and the Winegard systems using the AZBox receivers. Connect up the Openbox S9 and that reading drops to 71%Q on the Winegard dish. Haven't checked on the Unimesh but I do remember that number being much lower on that system also using the S9. So it looks like there's a fair amount of difference in Q readings on some TPs between receiver brands.

 

[turbosat]

I'm beginning to suspect that your temporary mount may be causing some of your aiming troubles. Wonder if moving the dish somehow is causing the pole to shift ever so slightly and throw off your tracking (and thus, your signal readings). Stick it on a pole that you know is plumb and test it, would be my idea.

 

[Lone Gunman]

Yeah Turbo that thought had crossed my mind but I've got a magnetic level that stays on that post and I must have checked that thing a zillion times over the past week or so and it's always plumb? Not to say that you might not be correct, just that the level hasn't shown that to be a problem. Besides that I've got the dish bolted and CHAINED down east to west and it's bolted down in the north south direction.

I'm actually using that dish now and will try tweaking that LNBF a little more as time permits. Got the makings of a major problem with some other stuff at the moment so that dish isn't a priority right now. And that SAMI dish is only two coax connections away from being back in service if it's needed.

 

[Lone Gunman]

UPDATE: Well it's been a while since I posted anything on this so here's where I'm at on it now.

After lunch today I'm going to do some dish swapping and this Unimesh is going on the post that my Winegard dish is mounted on now. The Winegard dish is going to be moved to the post that the SAMI dish is mounted on and the SAMI goes on the temporary mount until/if I'm able to get that Umimesh tweaked in like I want it.

FYI, I did get that Umimesh where I could lock 125W Ku Montana and OETA and Q on 139W TP 4169 was around 72%. None of my other dishes were any better than 74% on that TP so I decided to move to the stationary mount and see what happens there.

I've wanted to move that Winegard dish to where the SAMI is mounted for some time now so the Unimesh swap just made it so that will happen today. So right now I'm without any FTA until I can get that Winegard dish back up maybe later this afternoon.

Meanwhile I've been in contact with one of our new members about this SAMI dish I "MAY" not need. IF I can get the Unimesh where I want it then I'm going to give that SAMI away along with a Pansat 3500 SD that I never use any more. While that Pansat is outdated, it will give the guy something to play with without spending much money to see if he wants to go any further in the hobby . He's going to need to buy a Vbox 7 or X and an LNBF along with cable and coax to complete the system. I even have some pipe for the mount too.

So lets hope that I can get this Unimesh dish tweaked in to where I can use it instead of that SAMI.

 

[Lone Gunman]

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!! All three dishes were moved Saturday after lunch and all three are back up and running again but in different locations. In fact I'm watching a movie on Reelz right now on the SAMI setup on the temp mount on my car trailer.

I got the Winegard dish up and running and watched a movie on it late yesterday evening. Could have gotten it done quicker but I pulled all new wire to that dish and took the old Cband ribbon cable out. I'll store that for a rainy day. Ran two pieces of solid copper coax and also did something I hope doesn't bite me in the azz. I had checked with my local electric supply house looking for some 18ga 4 conductor UV resistant for the motor and reed switch but man, they wanted $.62 a FOOT for that stuff so instead I bought a 100ft roll of 18ga speaker wire off Amazon @ $28 SHIPPED. It's got a PVC jacket but not UV rated but at the price I paid I can afford to run it again in the future if needed since I only used about half that roll. Motor load on that dish is only a little over 3 amps so hopefully that won't be a problem. If it is I'll find out soon enough I guess.

Ever hear the expression "Even a blind squirrel will pick up an acorn once in a while"? I had a stroke of luck with that Unimesh dish as Saturday evening just before dark I went out and "eye balled" it's position (rotation) on the post before I had connected any wiring up to it. Well, this morning I got up early and started work on the Unimesh and by 10am I had that thing up and running and the only adjustment I made to it was up two flats on the elevation? I STILL HAVEN'T TOUCHED ROTATION ON THE POST, and from what I see now I won't need to as I'm getting EVERYTHING on that system now that I got with the Winegard dish on that post. DAYUMN I'm good!! Just kidding. Richard Petty once said that he'd rather be lucky than good any day and that applies here.

So I'll wait a week or so to see how this all works out before I make a commitment on letting the SAMI go but right about now that's looking more and more like it'll happen. Plan on that one is to connect that Pansat 3500 to it tomorrow and see how many channels I can get on it, IF I can remember how to use that receiver that is.

Was a good weekend and got a lot of stuff done!! Azz is dragging about now too so it's time for a shower and a "cold" one!