9 foot mesh dish - Livingston, Montana

[Magic Static]

The panels are super stiff for sure. The hitch in removing the mount from the pole was a rollpin. They had drilled thru the mount and pole after it was aimed and pinned it. Fortunately for me the pole was not full of concrete and I just knocked it thru. I googled the Ajak mount and found the manual right on this site. (naturally) When I disassembled the mount I didn't see the declination ajustment, but now I do. No fine tuning that. Just set and go! It's a nice deep dish also. should give me good signal seperation. But now that I got greedy and grabbed it all I got to do now is figure where to install it.

 

[Magic Static]

I think the guy I got this dish from may watch the progress here as well. I got to talking about the forum and how I came to get this dish and all. He seemed interested. He wanted to know how to find this forum Who knows, he may come to regret this LOL.

 

[Cadsulfide]

looking forward to seeing it being mounted as soon as the thaw arrives

 

[Magic Static]

looking forward to seeing it being mounted as soon as the thaw arrives

First I'll take to it work and and refurbish everything. I'm sure my mounting location will involve a long pole to put this over the rooftops. That installation job
is above my ability to do myself. Well I suppose I could rent a lift. I'll have to look at maybe hiring the job out. But keeping costs down is essential. I have $130 and 8 hours into this so far. (80 for fuel and 50 for the dish) My Subaru doesn't get the same milage pulling a trailer at 75mph as not. I never have pulled the trailer on the hiway so I didn't know what kind of mileage I could get. Looks to be about 21mpg pulling the trailer. The pole may be the most expensive piece of this project. But concrete isn't cheap as it was either. So I have a buch to consider and figure out. I'm definately stoked and eager to get this into use. I also have two other dishes in the works in front of this one. A WSI 6' Special, and a WSI 90cm KU and motor.
And I need to remove three dishes and reset a Dish dish. Going to be a dish kinda summer here. My 6' is up and wired. All I need is to aim it and fine tune it. Eventually I'll try and consolidate down to 4 dishes 2 Cband and 2 KU band.

 

[Magic Static]

I am really new to the c-band end of things here and I'm starting to figure some stuff out. I have been setting up my six-footer and I discovered that linear actuators don't move a dish from H-H. I can really appreciate the bud I just got here for that motor, which I had on the bench and tested today. It works good.
So which horizon do I want? East or West? My true south is 114°. I'm thinking probably East. What do you guys do?

 

[brex2001]

Your TS is only 4* east of mine so linear east would be the better choice I believe. My LOS is 55.5*W to 139*W.
What with spring the trees to the east need trimming now to retain satellites.

 

[Magic Static]

TY brex, I'm starting to figure stuff out here. One thing that I figured out is what kind of deal I made here. And first is a SUPER HUGE THANKYOU to Toucan-man for posting this find. This was a huge score. The BIG Ajak motor and a late model Winegard Pinnacle 10' perforated dish, perfect for c/ku lnb. I wasn't sure at first but I knew if Anole was excited I better pay attention. I'm looking for a pole now. Might have to bump everything on the schedule and put this together first. I was going to get into an STB and this will be a great antenna for that.

 

[toucan-man]

A SUPER HUGE THANK YOU to you for rescuing this. Hope we find another !

 

[Magic Static]

I've disassembled the Ajak. OMG!! Looks like this thing lost a hatchet fight. It definately was up against a gorilla for an installer. Though I suspect that the manufacturing process may leave something to be desired. The main rotating shaft is a pipe that has been machined to a smaller size. This (smooth) surface was full of strike marks wich left severe scoring in the bushing material. The grease zerk for the main shaft looks to have been drilled and installed after the fact. You can see where the drill bit hit the main shaft. The pole clamp doesn't fit the motor. It was "moused" together and the Elevation angle pivot bolt wich should be very tight and not move was worn deeply. The distortion of the metal in the clamp leads me to believe this thing was barely on arc. I will remake the clamp to fit if I come up with a pole for it. I'm looking for a pole and will adapt the motor to what ever pole I find to use. I have polished the shaft and cleaned and reassembled the motor. It should be good to go now.

 

[Magic Static]

Found the pole

I went shopping at Home Resource Depot where they sell reusable building stuff. I found a 4 1/2" OD Well casing pipe 21' long. $60 cheap. They had a pole there that looked impressive but a little over kill. Now for a 6' hole and concrete.

 

[Magic Static]

AJAK is ready

Some derusting and a couple coats of rustoleom later.

 

[phlatwound]

Looking good! :up

 

[Anole]

Most guys would probably do a grease it 'n go, and it'd likely last another 20 years just fine.
Looks like you did more of a full factory rebuild.
Your grand kids will still be using it, if we have C-band that long! -

 

[Magic Static]

I guess it was a bit more than painting it. The original location had it mounted on a smaller pole than it should be. They had replaced the strap on the clamp where the elevation screw goes to allow the smaller pole. This made it impossible to attach the motor correctly and you could not tighten that bolt properly
,


I cut out that strap and put in my pwn so I could attach the motor and put it on a 4 1/2" pole.


I put in a crossmember in the motor so you can now tighten the bolt properly.

 

[Magic Static]

Which LNB?

It always seems the more you know the more you don't know. I have been researching the specs on this dish. Iv'e been Googling away. Most links lead me right back here and our friend Anole. That man is a fountain of pertinant information. I found out this dish has some special qualities (Deep Dish fd ratio .278)which can be best served with a quality C Band LNBF. So I ask the question, Which LNBF would you use if you had your choice? Without going into some high dollar commercial units. And why? I can appreciate spending the money now instead of being not satisfied at first and spending the money eventually.

 

[Anole]

heavily edited

edit:
OOPS, I don't know what I was thinking of.
Had Birdviews on my mind.
I've corrected my errors, below:
--------------------------------

I can't remember, but think you are right on the F/D.

Try a C2 from SatelliteAV.
It's inexpensive, it won't exasperate you, works well, and if you really want a C-band only orthomode later, you're not out much.

Not sure about a dual band LNBF on that deep beast...
For the sake of my sanity, I might get a 1.2m for Ku instead.

Linuxman is decommissioning some of his Birdview dishes.
I know he's got a Winegard like yours.
PM him and ask.
He may be able to make you a deal you can't refuse on a good single or dual-band ortho!

 

[Magic Static]

Well after looking at several of the digital C-band LNBFs, I find the C1,C2 from SatAV are the only ones rated for that F/D ratio. So I'll give that a go.

 

[Magic Static]

I am really bummed. I've have spend too many hours and hundreds of dollars trying to get this dish up and running. The weather has fought me for 8 months. Just today I'm ready to set the pole in the hole that took forever to dig and the biggest rocks OMG!! Beauitiful day and all of a sudden thunderstorm like you never saw. And rain! musta dumped inches in less than an hour. Washed the hole nearly shut. Theres a 10 foot crater in the yard around what is left of the hole. Gonna take some effort to fix this mess. Ruined the whole project. We have had so much rain this year. I never seen the likes of it. And the weather guys never forcast this stuff. We were suppossed to have a great weekend. Well somebody somewhere is but not me.

 

[Anole]

I have been following the project and was really looking forward to the culmination.
Well, it's still summer.

Did you get an ADL low F/D ortho feedhorn?
I think Linuxman liquidated one or two, recently.

 

[Magic Static]

Pole Crazy

It occurs to me that the mounting pole I'm putting up is going to be the most expensive and difficult part of this dish install. 14' above ground. I also plan to run all cableing through a 1" rigid non-metallic conduit inside the pole. The conduit will route through the foundation wall into the crawlspace under the house. I made a pole clamp to fasten it to four rafters on the house. The clamp is held with 8 3/8" lag screws 4" long.

Unfortunately the hole has been a great headache. A huge amount of labor involved. And the weather has ruined it and essentially made me change the whole plan for the pole mount. I will now need to build a form for the concrete pole base.