12 ft Paraclipse manual

[brex2001]

Does anyone have an owner's manual for one of these dishes? Or some detailed assembly instructions?

I located a button-hook Paraclipse on top of an old sports bar nearby me which the property owner wants removed(free to me). The owner wants to have the roofing replaced soon & needs it to be gone first. He did agree that I could survey the top of the building first before taking it down.
I've read some threads here that seem to have mixed opinions of these. The pics had to be taken from a distance of 200 to 300ft away because of businesses around the property.
This one seems to be in perfect shape for its age, although I wouldn't doubt the hook has sagged & needs retrofit guy wires. But it has to be better than the SX-10 button-hook Orbitron I currently had in mind putting up for FTA. My LOS is 55.5W to 139W on a 16ft pole.
I might just build a gin pole for moving the dish in one piece, move it over to the parapet wall & then lower it to my pickup for transport. Whats the weight sans the polar mount?

 

[toucan-man]

What did Freud have to say about dish envy? On a 16' pole no less. Lucky you ! :up

 

[brex2001]

I'm not there yet. First things first...gotta get it down, home, then up again.

BTW, found Stogie5150's thread on the care & feeding of these beasties. And some pdfs including the manual. YES!

Very good thread Stogie, Mauiguy, Linuxman! Oh yeah & not to forget my local, Anole!

 

[stogie5150]

I'm not there yet. First things first...gotta get it down, home, then up again.

BTW, found Stogie5150's thread on the care & feeding of these beasties. And some pdfs including the manual. YES!

Very good thread Stogie, Mauiguy, Linuxman! Oh yeah & not to forget my local, Anole!

You're welcome. Most everything I know is in that thread. Note that mine is an H to H mount, and also has the quad leg LNB supports, so unfortunately I wont be of much help to ya on the buttonhook and polar mount. Anything else,ask away.

 

[SatelliteAV]

I owned that same dish many years ago. Hauled from the original home fully assembled minus the buttonhook.

If possible, I would rent a boom truck amd staked flatbed for an hour and transport it assembled to your new location. If you do decide to disassemble, bring a camera and many coffee cans for the hundreds of nuts and bolts. You are in for a long project. It is a maze!

Sorry, no owners manual.

 

[radio]

I believe that's the dish we still use at one of our radio stations to pull in the Michigan Radio Network! I know ours is that brand, wasn't sure of the size. It has survived being backed-into by a semi in a shared driveway (the truck was WAY off) and...even after being involuntarily moved, all it took was rotating it east/west on the pole and it was back in lock! The panels were somewhat damaged at the bottom, but it still keeps MSU and Michigan Radio Network coming in! We may have a manual in the engineering room if you still need one, I'll look if you do on my next trip. Its about 20 miles away, but I go once a week.

 

[Blindowl1234]

The 8.5 footer I got rid of last year had 72 nuts and bolts holding it together! I replaced them all...One things for sure they are one heavy, solid dish.....Blind

 

[stogie5150]

Their advertising back in the day, involved an inverted dish with a Mercedes car on top of it, to emphasize Paraclipse's strength. and Brian and Blindow are correct, LOTS of bolts holding it together...I replaced EVERY one of mine with a nice shiny new one. Two burly guys with bad attitudes can move it around once its on the ground, but to take it down I'd have as many bodies as I could get!

 

[Mauiguy]

Good Luck. My best guess as to the weight of the 12 foot dish is around two hundred pounds. It maybe lighter, but on the ground it is a little awkward. As you will see, the edge of the mesh on the dish is not well supported and requires a lot of attention when moving to avoid damage.

Now about that button hook mount:

The center hub of the dish consists of a backing plate and a center plate. Tha backing plate has a tube (into which i believe) the shaft for the buttonhook feed fits. Then there is a U-bolt that tightens the tub on to the shaft. This makes it extremely difficult to remove the feed as years of service cause corrosion etc. When I removed my first feed to convert to a quad pole feed arrangement, I used my trusty hacksaw because I could not remove the feed other wise.

About mixed reviews:

I suspect that the mixed reviews on paraclypse come from the percieved low success rate on tuning Ku band. Having given it some thoght, I think that may be due to the button hook feed either sagging or not having a very precise focal adjustment. I can assure you that if you eventually convert to a quad pole feed that allows you to precisely focus and center the feed horn, you will have no problems with Ku band.

The dish is well worth your efforts, but I do not envy you the task of getting it off of that roof.

Did I read that you need to mount this dish on a really long pole?

 

[Mauiguy]

I just love to find stuff out about these dishes. After reviewing your photos I see that your dish has a polar "L" type mount. Photo number 4 shows it fairly well. Not that it has a short piece of cable attached to the bottom of the pivot shaft. The loose end of that cable is supposed to be attached to the backing plate of the dish to keep it secure to the mount.

From what I can see in the manual, the mount assembly consists of the Polar "L" with safety cable, and a declination assembly. The declination assembly is bolted to the dish and it then sliups down over the Polar "L" tube. The declination assembly is the larger pipe that fits over the smaller pipe.

Also of note just for grins, the tube for the feed horn is called the LNA Tube.

I have the manual for that dish and mount. I will try to scan it to PDF and post it here. (all depends on if my scanner will talk to my computer)

If i am unsuccessful I will also post so that you know, and I can mail the manual to you snail mail if you desire

 

[brex2001]

I really appreciate all the input here! Thanks immensely!
After looking over the pdfs of the H-H manual & other notes about changes, I believe my best move would be to completely disassemble the dish then lower it in pieces because of the layout of the property with its congested lots around it. Street side wouldn't be that safe either for lowering a complete dish.
I have cutoff wheels for my angle grinder, cordless impact & other tools to make the job easier. I'll have to clear a work area in front of my garage before beginning reassembly. I have in mind building a rolling fixture to bolt to the back plate for ease of assembly.
Then roll the assembled dish over to the pole & lift it up to the polar mount with a gin pole. Lastly attach the upper & lower panels to the frame. I found the notes to convert this to a 4 arm scalar mount & would do that during assembly on the ground. 1x1/8" aluminum strips could be the ticket for replacing the plastic "T" strips.
Then comes the tweaking for tracking the Clarke belt. I really didn't intend to use it for anything other than C band with an ortho feedhorn & two 8515 Norsat LNBs. I have a 4ft offset dish with a DG380 motor for Ku band, so I'm set there.
I have a home machine shop with TIG & MIG welders, lathe, drill press, mill, etc. so building fixtures isn't any bother to me.
I've been a maintenance mechanic/electricain since 1980 & so have learned a little bit in that time. Including when to concede that I can't do it on my own.

 

[SatelliteAV]

A point to consider.... A boom truck operator carries insurance and have experience working in congested commercial situations. If you have the button hook removed, wiring disconnected and cap ready for lifting off the pole, the street may only need to be controlled for 15 minutes.

You are introducing a ton of work to disassemble, remove, transport, replace hardware and reassemble. These steps could be replaced with a hour $250 rental for boom and flatbed. I have moved many dishes and will NEVER disassemble unless it is to be stored, used for parts or too large to transport.

Good choice to use this to be C-band only. My Paraclipse had undesirable, strong side lobes for KU, but had very excellent C-band performance.

 

[Anole]

...I have cutoff wheels for my angle grinder...

Speaking from experience, that is the best tool in the drawer!

However, after following Stogie's saga with his dish, I think Brian might have a great idea.
"don't disassemble it!"

But whatever you do, take along your kid, my kid, or somebodys kid to shoot pictures of the whole operation!
We want to see one of these big guys moved! -
(actually, my buddy's 4 year old girl uses a 10 megapixel camera and does an excellent job - she'd probably do it for a stuffed animal! )

 

[brex2001]

Don't disassemble it

I'd agree with not taking it apart except for the fact that my driveway gate opening is only 9 1/2 ft across & the space between the house & garage is but 8 1/2ft. Replacing all the rusty hardware with stainless steel sounds like a good idea though. Removing the outer panels so they don't get damaged also sounds to be a good idea.

The property owner said that it may be 30 to 60 days yet before he needs it taken down, so I may have time to build a rolling fixture to keep it vertically mounted for temp storage in the back yard. He also said he would clear a space for me to work in his auto repair lot right next to the dish. It would cost him extra to have the roofers take it down vs. me doing it for free, thus saving him some dough for the roof repairs. A very convincing argument.

By the time its ready to be moved I could have enough bodies to handle the job, crab-walking the dish through the narrower spaces to the back near the pole.

Included more pics today to ogle. Taken with a Canon Powershot S3 12x optical/4x digital, 6 Megapixel. (I need to rename all the sub-folders 12ft but in reality that's not important enough to be anal about it)

 

[stogie5150]

Is that a FLAT roof? If it is there's no way I'd rent a boom truck. I'd get a couple hands, take the dish off the pole, lay it on the roof, remove just enough bolts to break it in two pieces, and lower the two halves down with a couple ropes with a man on each rope. I broke mine in half in 20 minutes after I got it on the ground, with just a ratchet and open-end wrench, and some pliers.

 

[toucan-man]

Great photos.

"Now THAT's a dish." -- Crocodile Dundee

 

[SatelliteAV]

Wow, these pictures bring back memories. What a beautiful dish! Still can remember the "Dish Envy" compliments from my friends who where affected by the WAF regulations!

Important Note: There is a sleeve (bushing preventing slop) that is inserted between the two tubes of the polar rotation assembly. It is very easy to damage or lose in transition.

 

[Anole]

my buddy's 4 year old girl uses a 10 megapixel camera and does an excellent job - she'd probably do it for a stuffed animal!

Had lunch today with my buddy, and told him about your project.
He says his little girl would probably shoot it for a 99¢ coloring book! -
Poor little thing. She needs to learn some crass consumerism!

I broke mine in half in 20 minutes after I got it on the ground, with just a ratchet and open-end wrench, and some pliers.

Was that a dis-assembly, or did you snap the old bolts off?
Might be a task for the cutoff wheels and angle grinder.?.?

 

[turbotoy]

As far as I'm cocnerned, that is "the" dish to have in terms of C-Band performance, asthetics and especially robustness. There were and still are a lot of them in my area. There's a mint black one a friends father has that is mine for the taking a few miles of backroads from me.

On that particular dish I swapped a 90ish degree LNA setup from the early 80s that was performing very well to a Norsat 17 degree LNB and all analog was perfection here in the Northeast. I will say, that dish went through several quality actuators over the years, including a Saginaw. Likely a consequence of the weight of the dish, the weather we have and that the owner put it to good use.

All in all, certainly worth the effort to retrieve, you won't be dissapointed.

On a sidenote, I do not believe that's an OEM Paraclipse feedhorn cover. All the ones I have seen are not round, and really make the dish look that much better.

 

[brex2001]

As far as I'm cocnerned, that is "the" dish to have in terms of C-Band performance, asthetics and especially robustness. There were and still are a lot of them in my area. There's a mint black one a friends father has that is mine for the taking a few miles of backroads from me.

On that particular dish I swapped a 90ish degree LNA setup from the early 80s that was performing very well to a Norsat 17 degree LNB and all analog was perfection here in the Northeast. I will say, that dish went through several quality actuators over the years, including a Saginaw. Likely a consequence of the weight of the dish, the weather we have and that the owner put it to good use.

All in all, certainly worth the effort to retrieve, you won't be dissapointed.

On a sidenote, I do not believe that's an OEM Paraclipse feedhorn cover. All the ones I have seen are not round, and really make the dish look that much better.

Currently there is a 7.5ft Perfect 10 where I would like to mount this 12ft Paraclipse. While I can get some dvb-s2 channels OK there are some that just need that extra gain to receive them well. I have some other covers that could be used, not too concerned about being 100% original yet.
I'll probably gets some annoyed looks from some of the neighbors, but they just don't get it about having hobbies & that's on them. 3 of these have pizza dish....I just can't abide shifty, "subject to change without notice" contracts. One day they may learn.