My C-Band find / A few questions

[Thehandyone]

This is my first post, so bear with me. A guy had posted on craigslist he was looking to get rid of his c-band dish. He had advertised it as a 7 foot mesh dish which I though would be a good starting point for me, but when I got it home and measured it, it is 10 feet across. I thought it was going to be hard convincing my wife to let me put up a 7 foot dish, I dont know what I'm going to do to have her let me put this one up. Anyway, he was using it up until Sept of last year, when he said he got tired of the c-band content going away. He said the dish was 15 years old, which some of the bolts I broke trying to remove it show that age.

On to the questions. One of the sections was damaged by a bird, and I was wondering how hard it would be to repair the section. Is there anything I need to be careful of to take the dish apart besides marking where the panels currently are? He still has a 4DTV receiver, and I didnt know if that would be better or if I should just get a v box to drive the acutator. I had heard that the mesh on the dish needed to be fine to be able to receive ku band as well. Is it posssible with this large of dish, and how fine should that mesh be.

Here's a couple of pics of the dish. I'll have to drill and tap the bolts holding the lnb to the dish because those are the ones I broke off trying to remove the dish. I'm hoping to get the lnb removed tomorrow so I can flip the dish over. The other pic is of the damaged panel to see how difficult it will be to fix.



Well, I'll leave it here for a start, I'm sure I'll have many more questions to come.

Thanks

 

[Anole]

Congratulations on your first post - and you even brought a nice BUD to the party with ya! -

There's a joke in there somewhere... can't tell a 7' dish from a 10'er, eh?

Well, one thing that's said on this forum quite often, and words to live by:
"it's easier to apologize than to ask permission"
So keep quiet, install it, and if someone discovers it's not 7 feet, then deal with it! -

On the subject of 4Dtv going away... well, not all of it.
Read up on what's happening, over in our 4DTV sub-forum.
edit: If they've got programming you want that's not on FTA, go for it.
I'm drowning in RF here in Los Angeles, and have other solutions, so it's not for me.

I don't have any personal experience repairing the mesh on dishes.
Kinda depends on the exact type, the particular damage, and how the dish holds it in place.
But, we have loads of members who've fixed much worse, so expect them to chime in shortly!

Generally, button hook feed mounts like yours (single pole up the middle) get wobbly with age.
When you get a bit further along, we can discuss how to stabilize yours (or put on four legs to hold the scalar).

For Ku, measure the holes. If they're long and irregular, measure the longest dimension.
If you can take close up pictures, get one of the mesh, with a little ruler laying on it.

 

[primestar31]

Put it up, and tell your wife it's a 7 foot, if she asks that is. Unless she has a real good eye, or pays attention more than the average wife, she'll never know the difference. If she actually heads towards the dish with a tape measure, act all dumbfounded, and think fast on what to say. I suggest something like: "Honey, I thought we were going out to eat, let's GO!"

As for the broken bolts, if you take it apart, you are most likely going to break a whole lot more of them. Standard SOP when they've been out there for 10+ years. They weren't all that good in the first place in most cases. Replace them all, is the best thing to do.

If it's possible on that bird damaged panel, you might be able to re-flatten it out with a car body hammer and a piece of metal to use as an anvil, and then stitch it on the rip with some wire to use as a 'thread'. Get it as good as you can, and it probably won't make much difference to the signal. Or, you can remove that torn mesh, and replace it with sheet aluminum. That might not look very pretty to your wife, but it'll work. That's the cheap way. The expensive way, is to look around, and see if you can get a replacement panel for that specific dish.

Oh, and as for that button hook feed, buy some turn-buckles, and some guy wire from Radio Shack. Guy wire it in at least 3 places equi-distant at the feedhorn, to screws placed on the outer ring of the dish, Turn each turn-buckle slowly, and get it centered and TIGHT all the way around. I've done that, and it works well.

 

[Dishman Dan]

Put it up, and tell your wife it's a 7 foot...

Primestar31 does have some good points on dealing with the wife. Even if she does measure it you can always tell her that measuring straight across is not the proper way to measure. Take out the center disc and the edges in the equation, a couple of slurs and you have 7 feet!

Nice find! I am sure that you will enjoy that "7 footer"!

 

[Anole]

. . . or, measure out from the button hook to the rim and exclaim:
"damn, it's only five feet, the guy swore it was seven!"

 

[Thehandyone]

Thanks for the replies guys. My wife got a kick out of them. Thanks primestar for the tip on centering the lnb. That will probably be how I center it once I get to that point.

I might go get that 4DTV receiver the guy had. I'll probably ask him what model it was first. The dish was free, but he was asking $50 for the receiver. I know thats a good price compared to ebay, but when I was removing the dish I wasnt aware you could still get 4D programming, I had heard the rumor that motorola had stopped the service. Now that I read a few of the posts in the 4D forum, I know that's not the case.

When I'm out working on the dish later today, I'll get a close up pic of the mesh. I'm not too worried if it wont work for ku band since I already have a motorized 36" dish. I just thought it might be an option to have both on the same dish. I'll get a couple of pics of the lnb and actuator as well.

Thanks.

 

[primestar31]

Thanks for the replies guys. My wife got a kick out of them. Thanks primestar for the tip on centering the lnb. That will probably be how I center it once I get to that point.

I might go get that 4DTV receiver the guy had. I'll probably ask him what model it was first. The dish was free, but he was asking $50 for the receiver. I know thats a good price compared to ebay, but when I was removing the dish I wasnt aware you could still get 4D programming, I had heard the rumor that motorola had stopped the service. Now that I read a few of the posts in the 4D forum, I know that's not the case.

When I'm out working on the dish later today, I'll get a close up pic of the mesh. I'm not too worried if it wont work for ku band since I already have a motorized 36" dish. I just thought it might be an option to have both on the same dish. I'll get a couple of pics of the lnb and actuator as well.

Thanks.

Make sure he plugs in the 4dtv, and make SURE it still has a valid "unit id" number. If it doesn't, it's junk, and not worth anything but being used as a positioner. I got one for $20 a couple years ago, and the unit id was gone.. It's sitting on a shelf in the garage now...

Oh, and you weren't supposed to show your wife those answers!

 

[Thehandyone]

Here are some more pics of the dish parts. I'm glad I checked out the lnb when I did since there was a wasp nest in there. Can you guys give me any info on the polarotor and the lnb. Are they worth continuing using, or are there better products out there I should be using. I'm guessing that mount is just a standard az/el one? And the actuator was a Von Weise.

The tape measure in the picture is in mm. Hopefully its a detailed enough picture to see if the mesh can be used for ku band. They look to me to be 4mm at their widest.

Thanks for the info prime. Still haven't decided if I want to grab one, or just stick with the fta stuff. It didn't really matter too much with me showing my wife the answers since I had her help me unload it from the truck since I transported it home assembled.



Thanks

 

[Dishman Dan]

The tape measure in the picture is in mm. Hopefully its a detailed enough picture to see if the mesh can be used for ku band. They look to me to be 4mm at their widest.

The ole rule of thumb is if you can put a pencil through the holes in the mesh then it will not work for Ku band.

As for the lnb... I would set the dish up with the original lnb and tweak it using C band. Then possibly look into a C/Ku band lnbf like the DMX741 or BCS621 so your FTA receiver can run the feedhorn. Check it out on Ebay... for 24.99 the DMX741 is a bargain if money is tight or check out the sponsors here. There are C band only lnbfs available too. A lot of people use a BUD for just C band and have a small offset dish for Ku band. I currently have a OpenBox piggybacked onto my DSR922 until I set up more dishes. :up

Do not tell your wife that you need another dish or 2 yet!
You will need more than just a dinner date!!!

It didn't really matter too much with me showing my wife the answers since I had her help me unload it from the truck since I transported it home assembled.

Why is the BUD now in pieces if it did not matter that you showed your wife those
answers???

 

[Thehandyone]

I took the bud apart so I can repair the damaged section. I also need to fix the set screws on the button hook since we broke them trying to remove it. And then just some general cleaning before I put it back up since it's been up for like 15 years or so.

 

[paulvr]

Hi from another newbie,

Can't you just tell your wife that the guy you bought it from just appeared to have awfully large feet or so?
Here in Europe I can't use that trick, we only use meters.
But consider yourself lucky, I have used all sizes up to 12 ft and from my experiences the differnce between 8 and 10 dt is huge compared to the differnce between 10 and 12 so just consider yourself lucky with a 10-ft dish!

 

[paulvr]

I use an Unimesh dish that has much smaller holes that those of a pencil size but even then the results just aren't anywhere near those of a solid one for Ku-Band. Another major problem is that such large dishes take a lot of wind movement, and ith the small opening angle for Ku-Band you always get a lot of disturbance in relatively windy weather if you use a H2H mount like AJAK or a dual motor system like HAMCO/EGIS. I gave up trying for Ku band on that dish a long time ago. A 1,20 metre Gergorian dish beats a 10 ft Unimesh hands down anytime.

 

[Thehandyone]

Thanks for the tips. I'm glad its a 10 ft dish, that way I can get the dvb s2 signals. I'm thinking about just using the dish for c band and skipping the combo lnb. I was just curious if the dish was capable of ku band.

 

[Anole]

It might be Ku-capable.
But the C+Ku LNBFs are difficult to adjust on Ku.
Try it, see how it works.
Know that with more practice, you can probably get it better.

 

[dhj]

Your dish looks a lot like mine. I took a thin knife and loosened the flanges around the bent mesh so it would slide out. For a bad one like this try to find a sheet metal shop. They took my panel and ran it back and forth thru a pair of rollers. It came out almost perfect for flat even though the stretched holes pressed back a little out of round. When you slide the mesh back in (good your wife is a helper for this), the flanges can be tapped back down with a mallet.

I've used my mesh dish a lot for Ku, even after 2 major damages from catching a falling tree limb and a golf ball. It worked fine for my sub to Hits when it was on X4 Ku a couple years back.

As far as C band programming, check out Skyvision and SRL. Maybe something to suit your taste and pocketbook.