Laughing At Myself

[Keith Brannen]

Decided to move one of my dishes today back along the wall about seven or eight inches to get it farther away from my Star Choice dish, just in case it was blocking some signals. (see attached photo for setup prior to move, the middle dish was moved).

So as I begin to tear down the dish, uplugging the LNB's (leaving them attached to the dish), loosening the bolts, etc., I began to think (definitely a mistake) that it might be easier to get on the roof and lift the dish up and place it on the roof, rather than carry the dish down the step-ladder.

To get on the roof, I have to get on from the other side of the house (the dishes make it impossible to put up the ladder on this side).

So up I go, go the dish and start to lift it (not feeling totally at ease leaning over the edge of the roof), but the bolts still seem snug, so I loosen them some more. As I was doing that, I starting thinking (this time a good thing) that I really don't like leaning over the roof to lift up the dish, I could lose my balance, fall, and come crashing down on top of the dish. Decided it would be better to carry the dish down the step-ladder. As well, if I fell off the step-ladder with the dish, it wouldn't be as far a fall, and I would hit the ground first and not on top of the dish. Plus, I might cushion the dish (I would eventually heal, but a crushed dish/LNBs would cost money to replace!).

Anyhow, I come off the roof, get the dish down without mishap, move everything, re-point the dish and LNBs, put the TV, ladder, and tools away.

Everything is fine... except... when I go to watch something on the other dish (G10R) I notice the signal for all transponders is way down (20-40 SQ loss). Why the loss? Didn't touch the G10R dish, couldn't see that moving the other dish could have affected it, unless it moved a board or something.

Out comes the TV, ladder, and tools. Figure I might just try shifting the arm at the LNBs to see if that helps, and the dish moved easily side-to-side! That not right, it shouldn't move! Get to where the dish is connected, and discover the bolts are almost completely loose!

Get off the ladder and begin to think. I haven't re-pointed the G10R dish in quite a while, but have done some bracket work and tweaking at the LNBs recently. So, if I failed to tighten the bolts the last re-point, later when I was playing around at the LNBs, it should have moved then.

It then slowly dawns on me that maybe when some idiot was on the roof earlier, instead of loosening the bolts on the dish to be moved, the idiot loosened the bolts on the G10R dish!

Either way, if I forgot to tighten the bolts at the last re-point (unlikely) or I loosen up the bolts of the wrong dish, I'm an idiot, or in the immortal words of Bugs Bunny: "A real maroon"!

Think I'll just watch some TV now, and try to avoid looking at signal quality for a while (sure, that's unlikely).

 

[swampman]

LOL....thats priceless.

 

[mastermesh]

Welcome to the pain and pleasures of the roof dancing crowd. Ain't it great fun being a hot cat on a tin roof getting weird looks from neighbors?

 

[digiblur]

Another reason why I keep my FTA rigs on the ground

 

[Keith Brannen]

Welcome to the pain and pleasures of the roof dancing crowd. Ain't it great fun being a hot cat on a tin roof getting weird looks from neighbors?

Which is why I mounted my dishes on the side of the house, so I wouldn't have to go on the roof! As you can see, I have good reasons why I shouldn't ever go on the roof!

Already have one neighbour who seems to always walk by the driveway every time I'm up on the ladder. Last time, she just laughed!

 

[Larry1]

Well this week I was up on the roof replacing the amplifier on my OTA antenna. After removing the antenna, building a new mast to get it a little higher, hauling it up on the roof and trying to get the mast back in the top bearing on the TV tower the mast started to sway as I was holding it at the end of the pipe and it swung down some as I was trying to stop it from crashing to the ground. Well, the pipe knocked the dish, but not too hard. After then trying again to put the mast back in the bearing, this time it went in fine. My OTA antenna now has much better signal strength and I can scan in more channels. The Tube (on a sub channel of WUHF-DT OTA) now comes in sporatically and before I had no signal at all from that channel and WNGS-DT OTA comes in with great signal strength. After finishing this project I went back in the house to find I had no signal on my satellite now. So now out comes the small TV, satellite receiver, and a pile of cables to connect it all up. Now I find my small tv does not have a picture. Luckily it was just the tuner in the small tv and I replaced the RF connection with the composite video connection. (that tv is only used for aligning the dish) Now back on the roof. Now the receiver is not picking up the signal from the remote. So, back to the ground to tilt up the receiver so it will see the remote signal. Now back to the roof again. I try moving the dish a couple of bumps with the remote and find out that the dish is still aligned, I had just turned the motor a couple of notches so it did not need to be re-aligned. Tried pushing on the dish to confirm it was peaked and it was. After this I decided it was time for a break and headed off to the store about 1/2 hour away to pick up some DVD's I have been wanting for a while. Well tonight I find out one of the discs in one of the DVD box sets is bad. Oh well, just the reason I need to pick up a few more discs tomarrow. The TV tower I have needs about 2 more sections to put the OTA antenna up where it should be. I have 2 sections now and should have a minimum of 4 for my location and six would be better. It was a good project but I am not going to add the extra sections to the tower, as I do get a few channels in with consistant very strong signal. The antenna on the tower for the OTA is a home made one I put together earlier this year and works well. I will try to take and post a few pictures if anyone is interested. Even though I was also laughing at myself, it has been great fun.