Cheap Actuator Cabling - for the C-bander on a Budget

[Inno]

I set up my 10' Orbitron this past weekend but I did not have enough of the C-Band ribbon cable to make it to the house (about 180' needed). I looked at a few options through local suppliers but came up with a cost of over $200 for about 200' of cable large enough to drive the dish and some smaller stuff for the reed sensor.
So with all that in mind I was in Menards the other day and looked at what they had. After looking through their various spools of cable (again a bit pricey) I decided to peruse the extension cords. They had a 100' 16gauge extension cord on for $12.99 with a $4.00 mail in rebate. So I bought 2 of those which gives me 3 conductors so then all I needed was the 4th conductor for the sensor. Back to the wiring section to find 2 100' rolls of 16gauge stranded wire for $6.99 a piece.
So for a total of about $40.00 ( minus $8 in rebates so about $32.00) I had enough cable to make it work.
I taped the single conductor to the outside of the extension cord about every 6 feet, simply plugged the two extension cords together and taped the heck out of it. I soldered the two single conductor wired together and similarly taped the heck out of them. Once the ground thaws I'll heat shrink (or otherwise seal) the connectors and bury it.
So to make a long story short for under $40.00 I was able to run 200' of cable from the house to the actuator of the dish and it works very well!! It was -35°F last night and the dish had no trouble moving.
Just thought I'd share that info for other budget minded Satellite Guys

 

[tvropro]

The only problem with using an unshielded wire for your actuator sensor is it can cause it to false and miss or add counts over a period of time. The foil shield with the drain wire prevents this.

 

[Cadsulfide]

cat5 cable is good for the sensor and cheap

 

[Inno]

Hadn't thought of that.........well..........we'll see how it fares. I'm in the country so there's not a lot of spurious signals out there but I may have to upgrade to Cat5 (or something similar) before burying it. Although Cat5 isn't shielded but twisted pair supposedly rejects interference better than a shield. At least this is the case with audio signals. Honestly though, as long as I can move the dish from the house, a bit of tweaking here and there isn't a big deal.

 

[tvropro]

It usually can get interference from the motor in the actuator. Since the motor is arcing from the brushes hitting the steps in the commutator it causes spurious rf pulses. I just watched a Tech talk segment I have on video tape the other night from 1989 that explains all about actuators and was talking about this. The proper installation is your suppose to run the shield from the case on the actuator to the chassis on the receiver.

Im at fault myself not having mine connected like this and will need to rectify this when it warms up. (it's -5 outside now) so it will have to wait.

 

[Inno]

I have been guilty of that with most of my C-Band installations........makes sense though.

It was -35 here last night and I ran my cable.........suck it up and get out there

 

[tvropro]

I have been guilty of that with most of my C-Band installations........makes sense though.

It was -35 here last night and I ran my cable.........suck it up and get out there

-

No way Im going to hang from my snow and ice covered garage roof and mess with this in -25 to -30 wind chills. As long as it works for now Im happy.

 

[Inno]

Well if it's on the garage roof I'll let it slide

 

[tvropro]

Actually I can't wait till spring gets here. I have some ideas Id like to try and possibly do some upgrades this summer. It all depends on the US economy and my pocket book though.

 

[zaxxon]

I plan on using sprinkler wire for my next set-up. I think it is something like 18 gage and about five wires. should work fine.

If not it's time for my tin foil hat.

 

[Cadsulfide]

It usually can get interference from the motor in the actuator. Since the motor is arcing from the brushes hitting the steps in the commutator it causes spurious rf pulses. I just watched a Tech talk segment I have on video tape the other night from 1989 that explains all about actuators and was talking about this. The proper installation is your suppose to run the shield from the case on the actuator to the chassis on the receiver.

Im at fault myself not having mine connected like this and will need to rectify this when it warms up. (it's -5 outside now) so it will have to wait.

Convential thinking about sheilding these days is to ground the shield at ONE end only in order to avoid ground loops. The earth potential of two objects 100' apart can be up to 1/2 a volt or more, if the sheild resistance is say two ohms, you could have 250 milliamps of ground loop current running through the sheild, inducing all kind of crap into the signal cables, most of which will be 60 hertz interference.

 

[Inno]

Hence some homemade audio cables I once made for between my CD player and amp.
The shield was shunted to ground on one end (through a resistor I believe) and open on the other and the signal carrying wires were twisted pair.
I remember back in the "good ole' days" when I was installing lots of car audio the double and triple shielded cables were all the rage.............at double and triple the price!
Simple twisted pair (homemade again) never once gave me any unwanted noise in my last system.