Installing my first used C-Band dish. Will these components still work?

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Wms-Stargate

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Dec 9, 2016
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Hello, I kinda have a few threads going on. However I wanted to break them out into their on threads.

So i want to bring an old BUD back to life. I have some pictures of what I have. I wanna know what you guys think I might need to get this Dish up and running. I was told in another thread that my Yaggi antenna for my (WISP, Wireless Internet Service Provider) might interfere with C-Band out here. I will post pictures of the yaggy so you will know what i am dealing with as well.

Anyway here are some shots of this old thing. What length and size pole should I use? I am thinking that i might want to put a twelve footer where I'm putting this ten footer. This first big pole will be placed in my best spot. So i think it's a good idea to plan for a 12'. Then just hang the 10' till i come up with it.

I sure hope that rambling mess makes sense...

Thanks in advance
Bill

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First thing is to break out the penetrating oil. :) However, you may want to clean up and paint first, as will make prep work easier. But first make sure the pivot is not froze up and make sure it moves freely as you will be moving it quite a bit during and after the install. Next, I would make sure the actuator still works or is repairable. If not, then it is time to get the credit card out. As for the LNB it may or may not still work. Would probably be happier with a Titanium PLL LNBF. Fewer moving parts.

Those are my first thoughts, others will have more.
 
Great info thank you. I wanted to ask a few more questions. First the dish came with an old receiver. It's from 1987 lol and it heavy as a tank. It's a Starcast STR500 and seems to have every kind of connector on it known to man. Could this STR500 be used to just turn the Unimesh dish? Then use my new receiver X2 M1 HD+ for output to the TV. I don't think my receiver has anything to turn a dish. Please for give m My terminology. I am trying to learn...

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Well looks to me like that is a unimesh 10' dish. If i recall correctly my pole was a 3 1/2" diameter pole. IF you find a 12' that will use the same diameter pole id recommend setting your pole minimum 3' 6" deep in minimum 18" diameter hole belled out at the bottom and put a round paver brick or similar in the bottom of the hole. Schedule 40 metal pipe with a bolt sticking out of the side of it. If its cold out as it is here youll want to wait a while for the cement to set before you even think about putting the dish on it. have the pole about 6' to 6.5' above the ground to allow for the bigger dish though you may be able to have it lower not sure how close to the ground the dish will be twards the end of the arc.

Having had a long, frustrating time with the x2 m1hd, id opt for a manhattan or a linkbox 9000i. To move the dish, especially if you stay with the corotor, the titanium ASC-1 dish positioner is the way to go. Personally i prefer the corotor for fine tuning skew, but lots of people use the titanuim pll lnbf. There is a good possibility that the lnb that is on the corotor is still useable, I have yet to find one that didnt work, though i have 2 out of a dozen or so that are experiencing drift. If you go that route for sure replace the servo motor on the corotor, they are cheap.

For sure clean up and free up every moving part. Repair any tears, and beat out any significant dents and paint before you assemble. As light as that dish is, pre-assemble and check for warpage with string, also double check focal length and that the corotor/scaler ring is centered in the dish before putting the dish on the pole because it sucks working off a ladder, the focal lenght should be set at .40 on a 10' unimesh but you may need to move it a bit to fine tune.

The motor is pretty easy to check before hand with a 12v battery. First lubricate the actuator arm with some silicone oil, and the pivot balls and make sure they move freely. if your motor has a grease zirk, grease it. Then using the diagram from the motor cover hook a wire to each side of the voltage, dont hook wires to the reed switch or it will blow it up. It wont matter which side you use to hook positive or negative to unless the motor is fully extended or retracted, then simply switch polarities and if you hear the gears jumping disconnect power immediately.

Study fatairs bud installation guide, and i think there is a manual for the 10' unimesh in the instructions section. If you understand the basics you will be going and fine tuning in no time. though there are a lot of areas to tweek. Just start with your due south first yo get the feel of the adjustments and move on as outlined in the guides from there.
 
Well let's first talk about the pole, that's the easy part. If it's a standard C-band dish, and it sure looks like it is, it will take a 3½" outer diameter pipe, and if you want to put a 12 foot dish on it someday you need it sticking at least 6 feet out of the ground, maybe seven feet if you get deep snow. Now where I live, with my soil conditions and the fact that I don't live in a hurricane-prone area, I have never sunk a pole more than about five feet into the ground, using an old fashioned posthole digger, and I generally use four or five bags of concrete (if you can return the unused ones I'd buy a half dozen, just in case). I think a good rule of thumb in my area is you want at least as much pole in the ground as you have above the ground. But my soil is nor mucky clay or subject to liquification, and we have excellent drainage. You will get all kinds of advice on this and some people will want you to use enormous amounts of concrete for a pole, and that may be necessary where they live and with their soil conditions. Where I live, it's mostly hard-packed sand (compacted by centuries of tree roots) and sticking the pole five feet in the ground and using four or five bags of concrete has always been sufficient (depends in part on if they are 60 or 80 pound bags). Also you will also have guys tell you the pole can turn in the concrete if you don't weld some scrap metal to it, which may be true if you get smooth galvanized pipe but if you get a rusty pipe from the junkyard the chances if it actually turning are pretty low, barring a hurricane or tornado. Still, if you don't have a welder, somewhere on the part that's going into the concrete, take a sledge hammer and try to beat it into a more or less oval shape - that will also help keep it from turning once the concrete is hardened. Or if you have a powerful enough drill, you could drill a hole through it and stick an old bolt or a piece of rebar or something through the hole.

The pipe itself will cost you an arm and a leg if you buy it new (not really, but they aren't cheap and you may have trouble finding one). I've had the best luck at a local scrap metal junkyard. They nearly always have some lengths of 3½" OD pipe lying around somewhere and they sell it by the pound, in my area it usually works out to around $15 per pole. Bring a tape measure to check the length. Use a wire brush drill attachment to get off any heavy chunks of rust and then when your are down to light rust you can spray it with either Rust-Oleum Rust Reformer (best if you are going to apply a top coat of spray paint later) or Rust-Oleum Rusty Metal Primer (which is a bit cheaper but I don't think it actually converts the rust, I think it just seals it in so the rust can't get any worse. But I may be wrong). There are other brands of that stuff but Rust-Oleum is the easiest to find around here and one of the local stores usually has a pretty good sale on it every summer. I generally use the Rusty Metal Primer on the pole if I have any, and the Rust Reformer on the rusty parts of the dish and mount (it can also be used on the pole). Once you have done whatever you want to do with the rust, you can sink the pole, pour the concrete (making sure the pole is perfectly plumb - check it with a level several times on at least three sides of the pole) and wait for it to harden. Pro tip - prior to digging the hole dig a trench back to the house and run a length of cheap irrigation pipe (the black stuff that comes on 100' rolls, the 1" size is probably adequate unless you are going to be pulling several cables), put a plastic bag on both ends to keep water out, and when you dig the hole for the pole tape one end of the irrigation pipe to the hole and pour the concrete so it covers a section of the pipe. This not only helps protect your wire when you are mowing or if you are digging in the area, but makes it much easier to run the cable or to add more cable (if, for example, you go from a single to a dual output LNB). After you pull the cable use silicone caulk to seal the pipe ends.

Admittedly I take the approach of using the least effort possible when sinking a pole but it has never come back to bite me yet. I do think some guys get very ridiculous with the amount of concrete they use, but maybe they have a cement mixer or just enjoy mixing concrete in a wheelbarrow. I don't, so I tend to take the more conservative approach.

You will in all likelihood want a new LNB. I would think twice about using a PLL LNB on a 10 foot dish because they can potentially overload on very strong signals. It depends on what you are trying to get. If you are going after the only mux I know of that actually benefits from a 12 foot dish the yes, for that you probably do want a PLL LNB. But if you are going after a signal that maxes out your receiver's signal strength then the PLL LNB just MIGHT be a bit too much. They are great for a 7½ foot dish or smaller, and many users have them on 10 footers, as I say it just depends on what you're trying to receive. All I will say is that I have used both PLL and non-PLL LNB's and I have found that the PLL's work best on the smaller dishes or if you are trying to get 16APSK signals, but that's just my experience, YMMV.

The positioner may or may not still work, it depends on two things. One is whether or not it has rusted to the point that's its frozen (which is quite possible if no one's maintained it for years) and the other is whether it has a pulse-count control that's compatible with modern controllers. I am not the person to give advice on that though, because I much prefer multiple fixed dishes and in fact only one of my dishes has a positioner arm on it, and even it is currently locked down on a single satellite.

I will say that from your pictures it doesn't look like the dish is in horrible shape. It needs cleaning, some wire brushing and a liberal application of Rust Reformer on the rusty spots, followed by a top coat of paint, but I've seen worse. You made a good find with that one. I would check the rim to make sure it's not rusting out anywhere, especially if it's made of steel. Be a bit proactive about treating rust spots as they appear and you should get years of service out of it.

I don't think the WISP antenna will be an issue as long as it's not pointed directly into your dish. If you suspect it is causing issues, try cutting the power to the WISP transceiver and see if your satellite reception changes.

If you have any problems figuring out how to re-assemble it, just post pictures of what you have up so far and the parts you have left, and we should be able to tell you what to do next. But I think you'll find that once you get the mount on the pole, and then the dish on the mount, everything else will be rather obvious. It will be much easier if you have a helper or two when trying to get the dish attached to the mount (one or two to hold the dish sections in place while the other positions and attaches the bolts).

Hope this helps!
 
Could this STR500 be used to just turn the Unimesh dish?

More than likely it can, and that will be about the only thing it is still good for, since analog transmissions have disappeared and everything is digital now. But if you want to save the expense of buying a new dish positioner, I'd certainly give it a try. You can use that to turn the dish until you have everything else sorted out and then you will have time to research the other options for turning the dish. Or if you have enough property and no pesky zoning or covenant restrictions, you may decide you don't even want to turn the dish, instead you want more dishes! :biggrin But that is a decision you can make sometime down the road, as long as you have something that works for now.
 
The WISP may be a problem if it uses the 3.65GHz channel. The WISP antenna should not be in front or sides of the dish install location. Ideally, the Wisp would be behind and not line of sight (shielded by a structure or???).

The STR500 is an analog satellite tuner with positioning and polarity servo control. This link might help with basic control: http://www.orbitcommunications.com/Support/Manuals/Starcast_STR500.asp

You could connect the servo motor wires to the Ground/+5Vdc/Pulse terminals and observe if the servo rotates when changing between an odd and even channel. If the unit does not work, manually rotate the probe to align with the horizontal axis of the dish, tune an active horizontal transponder on the satellite that you are attempting to locate (so the receiver outputs the 18Vdc that the LNB needs to power up). Use a 12 volt battery or battery charger to temporarily drive the actuator motor. Reversing the terminal wires will reverse the motor drive direction.

If you opt to upgrade the LNB to either a newer LNB or swap out the entire feedhorn for a LNBF, I have a different opinion of PLL and DRO LNBs than was previously posted. DRO and PLL LNBFs will provide similar performance on regular bandwidth and signal level signals. The PLL stability is significantly better for high FEC and narrow bandwidth signals. Neither LNB conversion or amplification should overload the receiver front end of a properly operating STB. The major issue with any LNB is when the amplification is excessive and decreases the signal to noise ratio.
 
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This is bad news...

I marked the way the WISP is pointed in red. Brian how can I find out what channel the WISP is running short of asking the WISP company.

Photo removed at OP request.
 
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I asked my WISP and here is their answer.

Hey guys quick question... Can you tell me what channel the wisp is on?

The reply...
The radio at your location would be in the 9ghz range.
 
Yep, no worries with your WISP. ;)
 
So the Yaggy can shoot right thru where the big dish will be! I mean literally it will shoot near if not thru the top of the dish.
My antenna points over the top of my BUD and I can tell you this, if the wife is watching OTA in one room and I move my BUD from another room it will break up the signal while it's moving. Don't ask how I know (Hey! What are you doing to my picture!?) :eek
 
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131w,ch7,Cspan still in glorious NTSC analog :biggrin

Okay, so there's ONE channel, that few people watch, that's on a satellite that only has a couple other ITC channels. I guess this is the "one white crow" of C-band. :)

“In order to disprove the assertion that all crows are black, one white crow is sufficient.” ? William James​

I don't know about anyone else but I would not run an analog receiver just to watch Cspan. I wonder how much longer they will be the lone analog holdout.
 
I hate it when I see a dumb mistake after it's too late to edit it. I wrote:

... and when you dig the hole for the pole tape one end of the irrigation pipe to the hole and pour the concrete so it covers a section of the pipe.

I'm not sure how you would tape a pipe to a hole; perhaps a quantum physicist could figure out a way but I can't. :confused: What I meant to say was to tape the pipe to the POLE before pouring the concrete. I should probably add that you may want to build a dirt dam over the pipe (put those sand castle skills you learned as a kid at the beach to use!) so the concrete can't run down the trench as it gets close to the top of the hole. A rock, a scrap piece of wood, or even heavy cardboard (or some combination of those) could also be used as a barrier, and might work better depending on your soil type and the shape of your trench.
 
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I hate it when I see a dumb mistake after it's too late to edit it. I wrote:
I'm not sure how you would tape a pipe to a hole; perhaps a quantum physicist could figure out a way but I can't. :confused: What I meant to say was to tape the pipe to the POLE before pouring the concrete. I should probably add that you may want to build a dirt dam over the pipe (put those sand castle skills you learned as a kid at the beach to use!) so the concrete can't run down the trench as it gets close to the top of the hole. A rock, a scrap piece of wood, or even heavy cardboard (or some combination of those) could also be used as a barrier, and might work better depending on your soil type and the shape of your trench.

lol.... No man I understood exactly what you were saying. Thanks for all of your time!

Quick question, can I run c-band & ku on the same dish?

Thanks
Bill
 
So far I have talked to Ferguson plumbing supply about a pole to mount my Big Useful Dish on. They only sell the pipe in 20 foot sections at 150.00 plus tax. That's for 3" id - 3 1/2 od pipe. He laughed when I called it schedule 40. Still not to sure about that but might of heard him say structural?

I talked to a scrap yard here in Fredericksburg and they said come on down and take a look. They have no idea whatsoever if they have any pipe at all. They assured me that it was forsale if they have it. My lord...
 
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