getting my first BUD, a few questions...

[wabo]

hi,
ive been reading a lot in here, and now the time as come to get a BUD ... you guys made me want one! lol

My problems is its installed a bit high, about 12'. I want to know if ist possible to dismantle it on the post and bring it all on the ground that way. How much do you think it weight

one other thing , i want to know if a did a good find, heres some pictures

 

[Lak7]

On a 10' Unimesh, the mount alone is about 30 pounds, and each of the 4 panels is about 15.
And about 15 for the Actuator. So at least 100 pounds.
You can remove the Actuator, then remove the Dish from the Mount.
The hard part is getting the rusty hardware to break loose.
There should be a hole in the center of the Dish, you could feed a rope through that and through the mount, ans lower it slowly.
More hands the better.

 

[starman345]

First:



Congrats on the dish, it looks like a decent one. It looks to be a 10 footer. You will definately need some help, you and a friend should be able to handle it, but I think you should be able to get it down ok. Be careful!

 

[gabshere]

Lak7 has already said the weight i was going to guess 100-120 total weight
i had two people install my 10 fter and it was awkward so if you remove it whole three people is suggested . the mount has to go up about 1 ft before it clears the pole.


so several ways
1) park you truck below dish spin whole dish around and place two boards 6 or 8 inch across bed of truck and two people ( one at each side can lift and lower to truck bed.

2) remove the 4 bolts holding the dish to mount plus the motor connection and lower the dish to ground and then lower the mount. thes 4 bolts usually are rusted up pretty good so use some PB Blaster and probably plan on replacing the bolts.

3) use a sazall and cut the pole close to the groung 2/3 way through and push the dish over with one person holding the dish. ( main thing is to recover as much of the pole as possible for re-use)


remove the pole and reuse easy way to extract is to disg dirt from one side and bump the pole ( with no dish on it ) with the truck bumper . it should push the pole out or over.

main thing is to be safe and to the group

good find and be careful with older mesh some of it tears easy or is easy to bend.

 

[wabo]

thanks all for your input.

the problem is i cant park a truck there. the only thing i have is a ladder, 2 friends, the owner and myself.

The owner want to keep the pole for his clothesline.

Thats why i wanted to dismantle it upthere and since i intend to change all the hardware that are rusted, i will cut all stubborn bolts anyways. is it only one large panel, or 4 smaller ones.

thanks

 

[turbosat]

Be a lot easier if you can get on the roof of that little building (or is that part of the house?)
You can loosen the bolts on the mount, that hold it to the pipe and swing the whole thing around whichever way is easier to work on......be careful!! Good looking dish.

 

[wabo]

yes i can go on the sheds roof, , it is now pointing north , the dish can be swing around. than what i initialy wanted to do, swing it so it faces away from the shed and removing and cuting those bolts. I wanted to be sure that a wont break anything taking it apart on the pole.

thanks

 

[gabshere]

and each of the 4 panels is about 15

yes breaks down to 4 panels & mount

 

[Anole]

tips:

Speaking from recent experience of harvesting my first two BUDs...

- take an extra man! Three is none too many!
- see if you can get the pole by offering to install one or two close-line poles for him, even in cement if necessary
- get some cheap cotton garden gloves for everyone to wear. The 99¢ store is fine.
- PBblaster is your friend.!.
- I took a sawzall and a grinder. Made short work of stuck bolts and the 3½" pole!
- at one site, where the dish was higher, I used the owners ladder and my ladder!
- review the question of disassembling the panels in the air. It might be a bad idea. You'd have to take off the LNB support arms.
- I took down 9' of pipe with a 65 lbs H-H motor on top, minus dish, by cutting 90% through the pipe, and having 6 hands guide the pipe/motor to the ground.
Not suggesting you do this with your dish on top, but it might be worth talking about.


Congrats on a beautiful dish! - :up

 

[wabo]

thanks all for your suggestions.

breaking it apart is about my only option, the dish as at least 300mi to do, and it will be done in a truck bed. theres no way a can get it there whole.

The legs bolts seems not to be too rusty... i hope. if not i could weld a new stud in place.

i see if a can get two more hands, seems i will need it!

thanks

 

[Mr Tony]

congrats on the dish....looks to be in very good shape

 

[Anole]

Taking the dish apart for moving is fine.
I was just thinking it would be better to disassemble it at ground level than up on a ladder.
Use your best judgment.

As for moving 'em whole, that's the only option when they're one-piece.
See the two threads in my signature, scroll forward looking for pictures, 'till you come to moving day, and you'll see how I trucked mine home.

Take along someone with the task of taking pictures.
We want this well documented.
It's always exciting to see a pretty dish like that get saved and relocated. - :up

 

[Lak7]

- at one site, where the dish was higher, I used the owners ladder and my ladder!

OSHA ALERT!!!!!

 

[Anole]

OSHA:

- -
Okay, let me rephrase that...
We had two guys up independent ladders, and the owner stood on another structure.
We then lowered the dish off the motor, from about 9' high, to a 5' high dog-run/cage/chain-link fence structure.

Then in our second move, we relocated the ladders, and brought the dish from 5' to the ground.
The ladders were also angled to as to take the expected side load as we took the weight of the dish.

One of the worries was how heavy the thing would be.
We really didn't know.
It was a little more awkward than expected (reason to have more hands on site).
Once we knew what the weight was, then moving it around was no longer worrisome.

 

[wabo]

thanks!!

man do i love the knowledge flowing around here!! ill sure bring the gf for the picture documentation.
we should be 3-4 for taking it down, ill try lowering it in one piece and taking it apart on the ground. only the i will know if i realy need to taking it apart up there.

i saw picture of that kind of lift, one time they showed us at a security meeting of some guy lifting another lift truck to reach high that was my best, now the one with the guy on a ladder in the bucket, wow!


thanks

 

[phlatwound]

That's a great looking dish.

If you need a stable work platform, a couple of sections of scaffolding is hard to beat.

 

[1captain]

Wabo the 1 thing that, I would do on this dish is mark you're 4 pie pannel to go back together the same way they where taken apart, just take a screw driver an scribe a 1, 2, 3, an 4 lines where they bolt the pies together. now most of the time this is not needed, but after looking at you're pictures, I would do it on this 1, for the guy that bolted this 1 together over tighten it bolts, you can see it where the pies are bolted together with its crush marks on the square alum box tubing.

 

[FTABman0]

hi,
ive been reading a lot in here, and now the time as come to get a BUD ... you guys made me want one! lol

Great Find Wabo! to the Satelliteguys! Let us know (With Pictures) when you get this big boy up and going!

Snap some of the takedown if you can! Always like to see how we harvest & transport them! :up

 

[wabo]

update

i took down the dish yesterday, it went pretty smoothly, with two friend and the former owner .Sorry for the pictures, couldnt bring the girlfriend with us. We had a little problem finding the right way to take it down. My toughts on getting it apart on the post went away really fast when a saw my 6'5 friend just barely getting the mount.

After having an argument with the owner about not messing is shed roof and the way he wanted to take it down : he wanted to use a ladder as a crane... and I wanted to keep the dish round

We remove the feedhorn and the quadpod first, there was the only bolt we had to cut, with an battery impact all bolts were pulled easy. I will change all nuts and bolts when ill put it back at my place!!
Finaly we used a mounting hole on the post as a pulley and tie it to the ring behind the dish , and slowly sliding it down to the ground. Succes!!!

After putting it on the ground , the owner kids started to kick it on the mesh. lets say hes father didnt left him the time to kick it twice!! lol

I opened the cap on top of the feedhorn, to find a califonia amp C/Ku linear feed. is it a good quality piece to start with? Its marked as a Startrack dish, anyone know anything about this brand?

a few other question, is the vonweise actuator i got with it a good one, or should get a new one. It gets its power from something that looks like a extension cord including the plugs. What should i buy for this 10ft dish.

What could be the expected arc i should get with it, it will be installed at 71 3''W and 48 24''N. Is the lenght of the actuator have an effect on the range of the dish?

thanks for all your inputs it went really great!!!

 

[starman345]

Mine is a Startrak, its a good dish, mesh is on the small size so it works well with ku. The c/ku feed is certainly a bonus, you don't usually find those on older dishes. Von Weisse is a top of the line actuator, you might need to take it apart, clean it up and grease it but try it first, it might be fine. It looks like they had heat tape on it to keep it from freezing up. I would suggest getting a rubber boot for it or whatever arm you eventually use, it will keep water from getting in and it won't freeze. It looks like a 24" arm, same as mine, I can sweep from 58 degrees to 137 degrees with my setup but it really depends on your line of site what you will be able to see.
It looks to me like you got a good one!