My luck with hispasat

[funkypc]

My wife was gone for a few hours this evening, so I decided to see if I could throw up another dish without her noticing. I attempted to hit hispasat. I tried for about 3 hours, and this is what I ended up with.
[ame]http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c139/funkypc/HPIM4701.jpg[/ame]
Yes, that is a C clamp...
[ame]http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c139/funkypc/HPIM4702.jpg[/ame]
I think part of the problem was I was attempting 5.7degrees of elevation... Also the fact that i'm closer to the edge of the footprint probably doesnt help.... and I was using only a 30" dish...
if you look on this next picture, you can see the gap in between the trees above the garage. That is what I was attempting to hit. The garage roof was about 5 degrees so I didn't have a lot of room for error... I think it's possible i was hitting those sparser brannches to the left of the gap, but I really don't know.
[ame]http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c139/funkypc/HPIM4703.jpg[/ame]
The satellite finder almost found something, (slight louder tone) but not a blip on the meter of the CS5000. Oh well, at least I know that it wont be easy to pick up that bird.

 

[Anole]

Well, all rigggghhhhhT !
Thumb's up for the C-clamp! - :up
Anybody who didn't get their vote in still has time.

Ya did a nice job!
Keep up the good work.

 

[mikelib]

To me it looks like you have the dish elevation tilted toward the ground and not the sky.

The J stand is not at a vertical 90 degrees. If the J stand was at 90 degrees and the dish was perpendicular to the J stand the dish would have to be tilted back toward the J stand 5.7 degrees.

You should be able to get Cuba-vision at 11884/v/27500

 

[funkypc]

Oh, I moved the elevation up and down - trust me. But in this picture we should be sitting pretty close to 5.7 degrees elevation. I had to tilt everything down, otherwise the dish would not have had low enough elevation. Remember it's an offset dish so it will appear it is pointed toward the ground when the elevation is actually higher.

Can I change my vote in the C-clamp thread now?

 

[Mr Tony]

I have to move the mast on my dish to be not 90 degrees when I aim at Hispasat

9 elevation here in MN

 

[iafirebuff]

I am lucky.. I think my elevation is 11 here in Iowa Looks like the motro has the dish pointed to the ground. Makes me wonder how it gets the signal?

 

[Anole]

won't get signal when there's none to get:

Not that it will get you a signal when there's none to get, but this low elevation is the perfect time to break out the inverted dish. -
(do a search for more detailed info)

With the dish on the mount upside down , when the face of the dish is vertical, the dish will be looking -down- about 24 degrees.
(instead of the current 24 degrees up)

 

[funkypc]

Ya, I was thinking about doing the inverted dish, but i didnt feel like messing with the mount, and doing the math, etc... I only had 3 hours to work with here, plus this should work just as well.

yup, i think my results would have been the same with the dish inverted...

 

[melgarga]

I did pretty well for my 30W trial. First the mount wasnt C-Clamp compliant, but pretty unique, I think. Everyone ever see those multi lamp fixtures that go in a corner behind a corner sofa ensemble and fan out over the room near the ceiling?

Well, they are 2" tubing,.............. and they have a pretty heavy 'foot', ...........and the joint breaks at about 3' above the floor,.............. and they are very cheap when you see one in the pile of junk in the alley on 'heavy trash' week.
And with an 8x8x16 cinderblock for add'l ballast, make an awesome portable, high mobility Primestar mount.
Anyway, I set the thing up per specs for 30W from my locale close to the house pointed out thru a gap between two trees that looked promising according to the compass. Since this was an impromptu effort, no full blown rx+tv out to the site for the initial attempt. I went back inside, and everything looked good config wise but no joy. Doing my best imitation of boresighting, I ID'd what looked like some offending branches, so out comes the chain/polesaw. After a generous trimming of both trees, and nearly getting beaned with a sizable branch, back inside and BAM, 87-92 on the 6000 without a tweak from the original (estimated) setting!
I've had more trouble getting Nimiq1 when the Galaxy music channels were open.
It was sweet. I havent moved it since, but it cant stay where it is. The whole thing looks really screwy, but very impressive on the Q meter......Yes I know Photo-Constable Anole....pictures....lol