How Much Concrete?

[wvman]

Yeah, same here, it's all rocky shale. At my previous house the guy actually broke the frost tooth off the bucket laying in the water pipe. He was not a happy camper. The only way you can dig around here is during, or immediately after, a steady rain.

After 19 years of removing rocks from my garden, I can actually run a tiller through it without uncovering a pile of rocks as big as my dog house. I put a lot of them around my Koi pond, and the rest are in a hole that washed out across my fence when the neighbor's drain line broke and the water went underground washing away most of the dirt under it. There were two holes about 6 feet in diameter and 5 foot deep that showed up on the other side of my chain link fence.

Later when they put in the water line out here, they broke 9 teeth out of the ditch witch and one off the track hoe bucket. They weren't happy about that either.

 

[wvman]

I forgot to mention that I drilled 2 holes at the 2 foot level and 2 holes at the 3 foot level and stuck a 16 inch section of rebar through the pipe at both levels. Thanks for the reminder wvman.

$0.02 more cents,
Norman

It shouldn't turn with that in there. I fixed one someone else installed by using an "L" bracket and putting an anchor in the concrete and a bolt through the pole.

 

[armadillo_115]

I like to get some heavy gauge copper wire and ball it up some on one end and drop it into the hole below the pipe and cement.The other end I run up to make a ground 'rod'. The steel/galvanized pipe provides SOME ground...but the copper wire is much better. More protection for lightning strikes and static build-up.

 

[RT-Cat]

Well I am sure happy I don't have to dig in your rock garden area. Most I run into here is all the tree roots.
Went out today and did some checking and had a good day. The recycling center had pipe I wanted, but it sure would need lots of clean up. It was too short, but with the two pieces and being able to weld well, this was not a problem. Then my eye caught a nice long one. I think it was some one else's mast. Pipe size I wanted and a smaller two foot pipe sticking out the end. Had the worker cut it off at 10 feet so I should be all set with the pipe. With the costs all researched it looks like this project is underway.

 

[turbosat]

To the OP: Do it as best you can. I discovered today that my biggest dish, my 10' Sami, has begun to wobble in its hole, and it near solid rock here like wvman talks about. I can't recall when I put that one in, but it was in the mid 90's. I dug it as deep as I could by beating out a hole between two seams of limestone and pouring concrete around it. Has lasted that long and 'rock' solid until this summer's super-drought. Even bedrock, or what passes for it can shift some in super-dry conditions.
I don't look forward to re-doing mine, but it has to be done very soon. Can't lose my best c-band dish.

 

[primestar31]

To the OP: Do it as best you can. I discovered today that my biggest dish, my 10' Sami, has begun to wobble in its hole, and it near solid rock here like wvman talks about. I can't recall when I put that one in, but it was in the mid 90's. I dug it as deep as I could by beating out a hole between two seams of limestone and pouring concrete around it. Has lasted that long and 'rock' solid until this summer's super-drought. Even bedrock, or what passes for it can shift some in super-dry conditions.
I don't look forward to re-doing mine, but it has to be done very soon. Can't lose my best c-band dish.

Why not try drenching that area around it with water from a garden hose, and seeing if it swells up tight again?

 

[RT-Cat]

To the OP: Do it as best you can. I discovered today that my biggest dish, my 10' Sami, has begun to wobble in its hole..........

Well that is a bummer. Hope you get it fixed. Sure happy all I have to work around is tree roots.
I ended up with a 34" diameter hole 4 feet deep. Top side of pipe is plum and top is level.

 

[RT-Cat]

Well, I got it all finished. Could have used a second person on Thursday with putting the dish up, but I managed to get it done. Spent most of today with trying to get it to pick up something. The old LNB I was working with really did not show me it was working so I placed an order for one like I have on the winegard. That one from Titanium is still working well. I hope the new one picks up something.

 

[turbosat]

Rt was your lnb working before you had to work on the pole? Maybe you got off-axis when you took the dish down? Or did you leave the mount and just drop the dish-don't look like that would bother with any of the settings much.

 

[RT-Cat]

This was a new installation of an old dish I took down few years ago. The scalar ring and arms were removed at that time. The dish was removed from the mount. This dish has a hub sticking out from the center that is welded at an angle. When inserted into the polar mount it gives you the declination needed by rotating the dish on the mount. Everything has been reinstalled and checked, re-checked, and double re-checked for all settings. The LNB was giving "odd" information on different satellites. That gave me the idea there was something wrong with it. Not real sure how long it has been since it was last used.
New one will be here very late Tuesday. Almost always the last package off the UPS truck.

 

[turbosat]

Sounds complicated. I think I have mine fixed, with the somewhat loose pole. After I spent about 4hrs over a couple of 96degree days beating a new hole out in the rock, I had another brainstorm. Decided I would just dig out all around the existing concrete pad, which wasn't nearly thick as it should've been, and just pour more mud to it. Dug out about 6" all around and as far under the old concrete as I could, and started mixing in the wheelbarrow. Broke wheelbarrow handle on 3rd bag, lol.
I used 6 60lb bags of quickrete, been two days now and it seems much more like it should be-no wobble. Now I suppose I have to fill that crater back up, wish i had a backhoe , haha.

 

[RT-Cat]

Sounds complicated. I think I have mine fixed......

Not really. What is complicated is these guys that put several LNB's on one dish and get more than one satellite. That's complicated. Gee, I have enough trouble getting one satellite.
.
Good to read you have it fixed, hopefully......