My friend with the 8/10 foot dish had to tend to an emergency, and the dish has some holes in it/slightly rusted out on the pole, might be hard to disassemble. My dad just told me to look for a smaller C-band dish on eBay, and he might buy it. So I came up with this:
180cm (6ft) C/Ku-Band Prime Focus Mesh Satellite Dish | eBay
This really suits my needs right here, and is not too large (I have a phobia of those large dishes anyway! LOL). How would I go about putting this thing on a pole? Does anyone know what diameter the pole would have to be? Thanks
The most common issue I run into taking down an older dish is frozen bolts that lock the dish to the pole. I found it's much easier to give each bolt a good smack with a large (2lb) hammer in direct line with the bolt. Doing this loosens the contact between the bolt and pole, and allows for easier loosening of the bolts. I always lubricate them with a good penetrant of some kind, while letting it sit a while, as you're getting ready to lift it off the pole.
Then after getting all the bolts loose, I back them out and toss them, replacing all the bolts with stainless steel bolts with a good coating of anti-seize before putting the dish on the new pole. You may not be able to do this, but I never disassemble a used dish. I haul it to my house in 1 piece. If it needs new bolts around the refelctor, I replace them one at a time. I have a flatbed truck with an 8x8 foot bed, so hauling a dish is one piece is no problem.
If the mount if rusted to the pole, it's usually the first 2 inches of the mount, and can be loosened by whacking the mount at the bottom with the same 2lb hammer until it comes loose. Never had one that didn't come loose with a little pursuation. An 8 or 10 footer will do a much better job over a 6 foot dish. Just a suggestion. Good luck getting it down.
