Ku Band apocalypse

[northgeorgia]

Well, rain finally returned to Georgia, and apparently water must have gotten into my LNB. Now, it took a while to diagnose that problem. But in the end it was ok; I had a spare. Unfortunately, the old lnb holder that came with my WSI 90 inch dish cracked to pieces when I tried to unscrew the rusty screws. The new LNB holder sits a little higher and angles back a bit further than the old one. I also decided it was time to put my dish on a pole mount in a bucket of concrete instead of my short rooftop mount nailed to a piece of plywood. Somewhere in the process, I broke the coaxial connector of the microHD STB. I just ordered one on ebay, and it's a good thing. I can't find another for sale anywhere else online Again, thankfully I had the Amiko MiniHD as a backup, but I prefer the MicroHD for Ku-band scanning. This is a motorized setup. I panicked earlier when I thought the DG380 motor had gone out, but it was all because of the LNB, believe it or not.

Well, so here are a few questions.

1. For those of you that use a pole in concrete bucket method, how do you make things plumb and stabilize it from rocking around on the uneven ground (I put mine in a hole I dug out and surrounded it with rocks, but it's still a little shaky)?
2. For those who have changed out LNB holders, do you find you had to adjust the elevation of your dish? That was the only way I could get the channels to come back in, but the signal strength has decreased significantly. Before I play around with the dish more, I want to be sure I haven't done a no-no.
3. The old MicroHD still powers up, but the coaxial connector seems to have broken off (it swivels completely around). I attempted gluing it into place, but figured it had already damaged something inside the actual "LNB in" port in the circuit board. That seems to be the case. Although it powers up, it will no longer read any signals or move the dish. Is there a simple way to fix this? Does anyone want to try?

 

[Titanium]

1. For my portable ground mounted KU dish, the planter pot is sitting on leveled flat stepping stones. No rocking.

2. If the elevation required adjustment, the new bracket didn't place the feedhorn opening at the same height as the original. The adjustment of dish elevation angle shifted the reflected angle of the satellite signal partially back into the feedhorn opening. The performance will be degraded because the feedhorn is no longer in the sweet convergence point and not all of the signal is being reflected to the same point. It would be best to purchase an adjustable riser clamp or the original clamp.

3. Both the center conductor and the outer shield of the fitting must be resoldered to the tuner. Glue is an insulator and will not pass the signal. Should only take 5 minutes to repair if the tuner was not damaged when the fitting broke or the glue cannot be removed or worked around.

If you don't have the tools or skill set, send it in and I'll solder for you at no cost.

 

[Cham]

Just a tip for working with plastic LNB holders with rusty screws... Try heating the holder where the screw is with a hair dryer or something similar, just to warm it up so it's warm to the touch, maybe 120 deg F or so. Not hot enough to melt it! Then slowly & carefully try removing the screw. Replace them with stainless steel screws if you are successful in getting the assembly apart.

Run into that in cold weather up here. At -20F plastic gets rather brittle and even tightening a nice new screw into a plastic assembly like these LNBF holders can cause them to crack. Once the weather starts getting cold I add an old hair dryer to my kit for working on outdoor projects, including working on satellite dishes.

Hope the rain puts out all those fires in GA. Some really beautiful forests down that way. Hate to see such damage. This year up this way it has been raining since spring time. More than a yard of rain, almost 40" since mid-May. Wish we could have sent you some.

-C.