BUD Transplant

[MrChuckFL]

I have a question about transplanting a BUD and alignment.

I found an 8ft mesh dish on craigslist free for the taking so I enlisted a buddy and we went and carefully unbolted the dish from the pole and set it on a trailer and carted it home.

I planted a pole and have set the dish on the new pole.

The new pole is about 5ft shorter than the old pole.

Will this shorter pole require me to make any adjustments?

I was hoping to throw it in on the pole and hook it up to my AZbox or Pansat 9200 and spin it around until I got a signal.

I ordered a new BSC621 C/Ku LNBF with 22KHz switching to replace the existing Chapparal UST 945 C band lnb that came with the unit.

I also ordered a VBOX 7 to move the unit.

 

[phlatwound]

If both poles were/are perfectly plumb, and the dish was tracking the arc on the old pole, in theory you should not have to make any adjustments, that is you should be able to just rotate the whole assembly on the pole to get back in business. That is assuming you know what sat it was pointed at, of course, and set your receiver to pick up a live tp on that sat.. As long as you have a clear line-of-sight the 5' difference in pole heights makes no difference.

In practice though it may not be that simple, you may have to make some adjustments, give it a try and see what happens, good luck!

 

[toucan-man]

...that is you should be able to just rotate the whole assembly on the pole to get back in business.

I moved a BUD a few miles and this was the case. What surprised me at the time was how little rotation it took to throw the tracking way off. A tiny amount of rotation is huge.

 

[Cadsulfide]

Welcome!
Do a search on setting up a C Band dish. A little time consuming first time but a good learning experience.

 

[MrChuckFL]

Thanks for the advice.

I am going to have a go at it next weekend.

Got my fingers crossed and hoping it will be my lucky day.

If not I guess I will get a crash course in C-Band alignment.

 

[turbosat]

Mrchuck, a crash course in c-band should be mandatory for satellite dish owners, haha. Seriously, you will learn a lot from doing your install, and once comfortable with the basics you will be able to solve most problems on your own. And what you might encounter that's difficult, just post back here and somebody will help you through it!

 

[Lone Cloud]

One thing you didn't mention is if you changed latitude by a lot. If you went maybe three degrees north or south, even if both poles are plumb, you might have to adjust.

I still swear by the "beep on scan" method - having a receiver that beeps faster and faster and at a higher pitch the stronger the signal gets. I have two Viewsat SD boxes that do that. So I wear wireless RF headphones (cheapo 14 bucks), set the receiver on the sat and transponder I want to get, and then go fine tune the dish. If you can reach the lnb you can use the same wireless process to maximize that.