Adventures in Dish Hunting 2008

[phlatwound]

Just noticed that you had added your pics, that's a beaut!

Anole has a good idea, as long as the slab was big/heavy enough, just set some anchor bolts to the pattern of the mount base and tighten it down.

 

[N0EXE]

Well, I got it home after dark that night, took the pictures the next morning. I gotta say, that dish has more growing on it than any dish I have seen in the forums so far. I got it torn down last night, it came apart fairly easy, nice design. Broke two of the rods at the threads, drilled and retapped them this morning, so no big deal. Last night during the teardown, I moved the dish so I could reach the rods, the motor turned enough move the dish about 1/4 the way. Tried the motor on the bench this morning, no go. Upon checking the transmission and bushings I found the brushes and commutator pretty worn, probably why they stopped using it. I think I have another motor from a broken 24" mover, will try it later. I think it has the mod for the counter, there is a pot with a gear on the worm shaft and it has the same end as the magnet sensor on the opposite end of the shaft. It has a dual Chapperell feedhorn, the LNBs are some offbrand, 'Super Ice', Googled them, nothing good said about them, so I will use the new ones off the Raydx. I saw a thread about using a 5gal bucket for the feedhorn cover, got plenty of those. That's as far as I got this morning before work.
I am tempted to use the mount as is, but, I can't. I told my wife I would put it behind the house peaking above the roof, figuring a 24' pipe will suffice. I have a good steel supplier nearby and get steel full length from them (I love to weld). The dish crane should be handy for getting the cement up to fill the pipe and mounting the dish. It will be easy to fiddle with standing on the roof, so, I'm happy, wife happy, mother-in-law. it's still a 'big ugly dish' (no winning that battle). I am going to get my concrete mixer from Dad tonight and hopefully a pipe tomorrow. May have a pipe in the ground by Sunday.
More to come.

 

[Anole]

I see you've done some homework on the subject.
Just be sure you understand what sort of pipe/adapter you need to properly mount that dish 'n motor.
It is not at all like anything else.

 

[Cadsulfide]

This is what dish hunting can lead to, just mounted the CM will try to get 97 this weekend. Good if you have the space, and best of all...no ladders!

 

[turbosat]

Cool place, and very nice dish farm!

 

[N0EXE]

Lots to update since Thursday, I picked up a 20' 6" pipe same size as the pedestal mount. I see how there is a plate welded inside for support and the big threaded bolt. I decided to just fill the whole pipe with concrete and drill and tap more bolts on the mount, maybe bury a bolt in the concrete for the top hole. Same concept, just harder since I now have to get concrete 16' up to the top of the pipe.
Installed the pipe today, uff da, 150# pipe. The crane I built has been very handy, used it to load the dish on the trailer, unload it and today lifted the pipe up so I could drop it in the hole. Plumbed up nice.
You guys (especially Birdview fans) will not believe this. The guy I got the pipe from has a Birdview mesh in his back yard. Complete with the original BV reciever!!
I can't believe how I could have two Birdviews fall in my lap in less than a week. I cannot take the mesh one. The better half would kill me, so, I have the owners information, any takers?
I will need to modify my crane to fit around that HUGE pipe. Made it to fit up to a 5 1/2" pipe. Sounds like the welder is going to get warmed up again. I won't need it for a few days, I want to let the concrete set a couple days before putting anything on the pipe.
I put the motor back together this morning, a good clean up seems to have made it happy, still should get new brushes.
Time to start cleaning up the steel and that beautiful parabolic.
Until later,
Mike

 

[Cadsulfide]

This is what dish hunting can lead to, just mounted the CM will try to get 97 this weekend. Good if you have the space, and best of all...no ladders!

Update: Installed a BCS421, and lubed up the actuator. Plumbed up the mount where I thought 97 would be. Set my inclination with the meter, and I got signal! Panned the dish with an old car battery (haven't run actuator cables to the house yet), and got blips! Watched the strong transponders on 99 last night, this is going to be fun.:

 

[49studebaker]

Does anyone know what kind of lnb this is?

 

[SatPhreak]

The "HTS" sticker on the corotor should stand for Houston Tracker Systems.

 

[voomvoom]

It's a C-Band lnb, if that's what you're asking?

 

[49studebaker]

Here is two pictures of the unimesh dish that has that lnb. If I were to replace the c-band lnb with a c/ku combo would I be able to pick up ku-band. Are the holes in the mesh small enough? I would usually try to estimate the size of the dish by using the feedhorn as a reference but I can not since it is cover by foliage. Any idea how large it is?

 

[voomvoom]

My guess would be a 10' dish , but Unimesh also made a 12' dish? I have a 10' Unimesh and I get good Ku signals with it. But, that being said, I get better Quality on smaller ku dishes that I have (between 80cm & 1.2m). But, also you might like to know that with a hard downpour, my smaller ku dishes will lose signal, while the 10' Unimesh only lose's a few Quality points and keeps on keeping on....
So, I'm sure it's safe to say, that the Ku should do fine for you...??

 

[Ga.Boy]

Never seen a dish like this on here??

The wife and I went for a long ride yesterday. We do live in the "woods", it's 14 miles to a town with a redlight. I saw between 12 to 15 Bud's just from the main highway, no side roads. I did stop and take some pictures of a dish like I have never seen before. I thought I would share this with you. I have never tried to attach pictures before so here goes. Take note of the manufacture, I was surprised.

 

[14karat]

Hmmmm.... perforated mesh petals. Wish I could find something like that around here...

 

[linuxman]

The wife and I went for a long ride yesterday. We do live in the "woods", it's 14 miles to a town with a redlight. I saw between 12 to 15 Bud's just from the main highway, no side roads. I did stop and take some pictures of a dish like I have never seen before. I thought I would share this with you. I have never tried to attach pictures before so here goes. Take note of the manufacture, I was surprised.

That will make you a fine dish!

Now if you can just get it and bring it home!

 

[Anole]

Curtis Mathes?
There's a name I haven't heard since the 70's... or maybe 60's...
Who the heck did they OEM that dish from?
It's a real beauty.
Wonder if any of our old-time members or professional installers have ever seen anything like that before?
It's a heck of a nice way to build (and ship) a dish .
But in all the pix posted on the forum, I don't recall ever seeing such a thing before.
Not one built like that AND perforated!

 

[SatPhreak]

That sure is a cool dish. Never seen anything like that before.

 

[osu1991]

Some day the good lord is going to bless me with one of these. Went by to check with the old birdview dealer in Tahlequah since I was there today. He is going to crack one of these days and went out on different road to avoid some construction only to find 3 more Birdviews on poles and what I think is a perforated Birdy on the ground.

The first is a solid and there is another one about 500 yds behind that house on another piece of property. The second is hard to see, but looks like a perforated birdview laying on the ground. The third is a perforated,(sorry for the blurry photo), I nearly got whiplash as I saw it our of the corner of my eye as I was driving by. I was surprised I even got it in the photo as I just swung the camera up as I was driving.

I left business cards at two of the houses and will be following up in a few weeks when I go back that way.

 

[linuxman]

Those are nice!!

You'll get one some day.

I'll never forget what my Perforated Birdview looked like the first day I spied it from about a block away. It was un-mistakable! They have their own definitive look.

 

[phlatwound]

Nothing real exciting about this one, the only reason I got it is, it's a clone of the one I have had in the back yard for 15 years.

10' Perfect 10 mesh dish (one panel damaged when they undid the actuator I guess, but almost no hail damage.)
Venture 18" actuator (hooked it up, works great)
Chapparal Polarotor (it does have a different LNB than my existing dish).

The pole was about 5' tall, took it down by myself in about 30 minutes.

I have been driving within 200 yards of this dish, probably since it was installed ((15 years +/-?), and didn't know it was there, somebody from our church told me about it, and the rest is history.

Parts is parts!!!!!!