65 MPH wind gusts and 90 cm dish.

[jayelem]

For 2 nights we've had 2 good Thunderstorms, plenty of rain and some nasty wind gusts and a power outage for 3 hours, when storm moved out of area I could see the stars and a little haze.

I had left my motorized dish pointing at 30.0 W. , which looked fine and went on to other birds and noticed that I could no longer hold a decent picture.

So my question is did I do anything wrong when I setup, like not have bolts tightened enough, or is this strictly mother nature at work, first time I have this problem.

Not all is bad, I've been thinking about realigning dish for awhile, just that if it's not broken don't fix it kept going thru my mind, now I do have to make an adjustment and who knows maye I'll pull in my signal better.

Anyone ever had this happen ?

 

[Das Hammer]

From reading I've done, pointing the dish away from the winds is probably the worst position it can be in during times like that (Most stress on the dish).

Send the motor back to say, AMC3 which is probably the closest good sat to your true south and then pull the dish left or right by hand slightly and see if there is any gain. This would tell you if perhaps the entire assembly has rotated on the pole.

 

[iafirebuff]

This has me thinking - in case of high winds, what is a good place to park the dish?

 

[Eastcoast]

I have thought alot about this too as where I live 60-65 mph winds are not uncommon especially with the tail end of Atlantic Hurricanes and the winter storms comming.I was thinking trying to park the dish side on or 90 deg to wind if possible.
If someone knows it would be appreciated.

Dave

 

[Das Hammer]

This has me thinking - in case of high winds, what is a good place to park the dish?

I'm going from memory, here. The item I mentioned above said the optimal place would be perpendicular to the winds. If winds were directly from the west, point south as much as you can.

I can't say it is true or not, but it does make a lot of sense. The dish will have the least amount of surface facing the wind in the above scenario.

 

[Eastcoast]

Well. I should not have said a thing as I got home this evening and my dish was facing as far East as it could go.We had some very strong winds today I think from the North West and the motor turned on its mount.

Dave

 

[aaron01]

I always leave my dish facing south. This summer we had a pretty bad storm and there were 80+ mph straight line winds from the west, and I thought surely the dish was toast. But after the storm there it was just as if nothing had happened.

 

[PSB]

High winds are another reason to keep your dish as LOW as you can get it, then if there are real HIGH winds its easy enough to remove the dish reflector. ( 4 bolts 2 minutes)

My dish is on the roof so I motor far east or west (Depending on the wind direction) in high winds. The low profile defiantly helps!

I use the same method in the depth of winter here in MN.

In the morning I motor into the direction of the sun to help melt any snow on the dish.

(Not that I have had to do this the last few winters as snow no longer sticks to my dish )

 

[Tron]

I removed my 1 meter CM reflector (left the rest of the dish setup there) and removed my 90 cm dish and its motor completely for Katrina. We had 140 mph sustained winds (180 mph gusts), and I thought even the roof mounts and poles would be gone. They stayed in place, though, and the CM mount was STILL ON TARGET when I bolted the reflector back on !

I've left both dishes up in much weaker hurricanes, even managed to pick up usable signals in 80 mph wind...