CBand Jackpot???

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iammike

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Dec 29, 2003
953
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Roanoke,VA
Hey guys, I just got back from checking out a free dish advertised in the local freecycle group. I think I may have hit it lucky. It's owned by a very nice lady who hasn't used it in a few years. I think she said it was last serviced about 5 years ago. It's a Unimesh, but I'm a little confused about the size. It measures about 5 feet 3 inches from the center to the edge, but I don't think I've ever heard of a 10.5 foot Unimesh. Anybody know if they ever made one that size?

The dish itself seems to be in great condition. The panels are perfect other than a few bird droppings and the mount looked pretty good. Some of the bolts are pretty rusted, but I'm hoping some PB Blaster will take care of that. The motor may be shot, but that's no big deal. I'm probably going to replace my warped cassegrain with this one so I can use my existing motor.

The thing is too big to move without disassembly. Does anybody have any pointers on breaking it down and setting it back up. I've already taken several pictures and plan to take a lot more to help me remember how it goes together. The ground is pretty sloped where it's at, so I'm a little leery about climbing too high on a ladder to get at the bolts. I'm thinking I might try to get the feedhorn assembly and mounting arms off, and then taking the top two sections off as a unit. Any suggestions or tips would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike
 

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Very nice dish. I would give my left leg for one of these.

I would disassemble the feedhorn and supports followed by the outer ring. Then slide the mesh panels out and disassemble the ribs.
 
Looks exactly like my 10.5' Luxor dish I had in the early 80's. Except the Luxor model used a center pole for the LNB. This dish is much nicer having the three legs to support the feedhorn.
 
That is a 10'. You measure across the entire dish. I have the exact same one. Dissassembly is easy. Remove the 8 bolts holding the dish to the mount, lift and gently place on ground, split into 4 sections. Then remove mount. You can do it by yourself. If possible, stop by the night before and spray bolts with Lube / Rust Bust(not WD40). You will probably break most of the bolts, so you will have to replace. The hardest part is splitting into 4, remove the center plate first. Bring some wood steaks to keep from bending the center plates. Offer the replace with birdhouse. :)
 
Nice dish and great find! I have never had much success with our free-cycle groups.

As Lak7 says, you can do the whole thing by yourself. I have one just like it, and I actually put it up by myself. Once the actuator is off, you can swing the dish from side to side to take the supprt arms off.

I like PB Blaster. It works very well with rusted bolts. The ones that break are the quick and easy ones. :)
 
That is a 10'. You measure across the entire dish. I have the exact same one. Dissassembly is easy. Remove the 8 bolts holding the dish to the mount, lift and gently place on ground, split into 4 sections. Then remove mount. You can do it by yourself. If possible, stop by the night before and spray bolts with Lube / Rust Bust(not WD40). You will probably break most of the bolts, so you will have to replace. The hardest part is splitting into 4, remove the center plate first. Bring some wood steaks to keep from bending the center plates. Offer the replace with birdhouse. :)


I'll have to measure again once I get it down on the ground.

I'm going to do some probing with a digging bar to see how big around the concrete ball is. If it doesn't seem too big, I might try pulling it out. I told the lady I'd do my best, but that I couldn't make her any promises. She'd like the pole gone, but didn't seem too concerned. She did mention a bird house too. She's already got a couple bluebird boxes in her yard.

Thanks for the advice on disassembly.
 
"The ones that break are the quick and easy ones. :)"

I hear ya! Best to replace them all anyway.

That's what I did with my current dish when I rehab'd it. I actually had to hit some of those bolts with an air ratchet to get them loose. Didn't have PB Blaster for that job though.
 
I'll have to measure again once I get it down on the ground.

I'm going to do some probing with a digging bar to see how big around the concrete ball is. If it doesn't seem too big, I might try pulling it out. I told the lady I'd do my best, but that I couldn't make her any promises. She'd like the pole gone, but didn't seem too concerned. She did mention a bird house too. She's already got a couple bluebird boxes in her yard.

Thanks for the advice on disassembly.

Soak the ground around the pole with water. Get somebody nearby with a tractor with a BUCKET. Bring some towing chains, and wrap them around the pole, then hook the chain on the bucket. You might have to drill a hole through the pole, and stick a long bolt all the way through for the chain. Raise the bucket, and the pole will pop out of the ground nice and easy! Give the tractor guy at least $20, because you just saved yourself from time spent in the hospital from trying to dig it out, and pop it with your own muscles! You'd be amazed at how easy it is to pop out of the ground a sat pole straight up with a tractor.
 
I got the dish on Saturday. It came down pretty easy. I had it all disassembled and inside of/on top of my van in a couple hours. About an hour of the time was spent doing some exploratory digging on the pole. The bad news was that after I'd exposed a little over a foot of the concrete ball, the thing was still solid as a rock. The good news was the concrete didn't start until you got 6 or 8 inches below the ground. I went back Sunday morning with a reciprocating saw and cut it off about an inch above the concrete and filled in the dirt on top. The lady I got it from wasn't home, but I think she'll be happy with the results.

The tractor approach wasn't feasible where she had the dish planted. There was no way to drive a vehicle of any kind up there without tearing up a good bit of shrubbery. Thanks for the suggestion though.

Saturday afternoon, I cleaned up the dish and spray painted the mount with some Rustoleum hammered finish. It looks pretty good now. The mount hardware was still in pretty good condition so I was able to reuse it. I replaced every nut, bolt and washer on the dish though. I took down my old dish and got the Unimesh up on the pole yesterday. I'll post some more pictures when I get home tonight and have a faster Internet connection.

I did make one little blunder yesterday and damaged one of the feed arms. I think it's still usable, but wanted to get some opinions. Where it attaches to the dish, it's split around the front about half of its circumference. My general thinking is that if I attach the feedhorn to the other 3 arms first and then attach the damaged arm to the feedhorn before attaching to the dish that it will work. I'm attaching a picture to show what I'm talking about.

Mike
 

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Anybody ever tried this stuff?

J-B Weld Company - J-B WELD Product Information

I'm wondering if it might be good for repairing the arm.

I've used JB Weld before with varying degrees of success, had pretty much the same luck with some of the 2-part epoxy glue products.

If the liquid weld/glue stuff didn't work I would try to find a piece of flat aluminum (maybe even some 26-29 gauge steel) of about the same thickness and shape it to where it formed a "shoe" that would fit right over the top of the end of your existing arm, then turn the flat end out and drill a hole that matches the existing. If you made it long enough to go up the arm mybe 4-6" you could use several 1/8" pop rivets to attach it, should be plenty strong.

There may even be some really talented welders that could weld something that light and thin but that thought scares me, I know I couldn't do it.
 
I've used JB Weld before with varying degrees of success, had pretty much the same luck with some of the 2-part epoxy glue products.

If the liquid weld/glue stuff didn't work I would try to find a piece of flat aluminum (maybe even some 26-29 gauge steel) of about the same thickness and shape it to where it formed a "shoe" that would fit right over the top of the end of your existing arm, then turn the flat end out and drill a hole that matches the existing. If you made it long enough to go up the arm mybe 4-6" you could use several 1/8" pop rivets to attach it, should be plenty strong.

There may even be some really talented welders that could weld something that light and thin but that thought scares me, I know I couldn't do it.


I think I'm going to try to carefully attach it as is and then maybe try the JBWeld for reinforcment. If that doesn't work, your idea of the aluminum shoe sounds pretty good. Thanks!
 
most machine shops or even muffler shops could bend metal and probably fabricate a new arm. if not heres a cheap way ..... take a piece of electrical conduit and hammer the ends flat
cut it to the length of the arm and then drill your holes ... then spray paint it black
 
most machine shops or even muffler shops could bend metal and probably fabricate a new arm. if not heres a cheap way ..... take a piece of electrical conduit and hammer the ends flat
cut it to the length of the arm and then drill your holes ... then spray paint it black

Hmmm. . . . I like cheap. Might be a good way to go.
 
This really could turn into a jackpot. I got home last night and found a message on my machine from the next door neighbor of the lady I got the Unimesh from. Turns out he has a Cband dish too and wants to know if I want it. I'm going to call him today for the details. Don't know if I need a second one or not, but you never know. :D
 
This really could turn into a jackpot. I got home last night and found a message on my machine from the next door neighbor of the lady I got the Unimesh from. Turns out he has a Cband dish too and wants to know if I want it. I'm going to call him today for the details. Don't know if I need a second one or not, but you never know. :D

Before you know it you're going to be famous......iammike, the crazy dude that will actually remove these ugly satellite dishes from our yards.....FOR FREE!!!!!!

Happy hunting! :D
 
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