New Mini-BUD Install

[Titanium]

A dielectric slab is only inserted into the feedhorn when receiving circular polarized signals. Do not insert the dielectric when receiving linear polarity signals, as the slab will attenuate the linear signal by approximately 3dB.

This install guide is a great resource when installing a LNBF:
http://www.titaniumsatellite.com/downloads/Guides/LNBF Install Guide.pdf

 

[Fizbi]

A dielectric slab is only inserted into the feedhorn when receiving circular polarized signals. Do not insert the dielectric when receiving linear polarity signals, as the slab will attenuate the linear signal by approximately 3dB.

This install guide is a great resource when installing a LNBF:
http://www.titaniumsatellite.com/downloads/Guides/LNBF Install Guide.pdf

Thanks, Haven't had a chance to review it yet.

Just an update as I did get a request.

I planted my pole four feet into the ground and anchored it with some concrete. As was pointed out to me, there is a significant gap between the pole and mounting hardware. To fix that, I filled the gap with some PVC plumbing, but I made the mistake of not prefitting some parts, thus it mounted to the pole too tight. Couldn't rotate the dish hardware or get the the hardware off the pole to correct the problem.

Needless to say, it resulted in a lot of wasted effort trying to get it off. I had to resort to using a sledge hammer and a few other tools to undo some mistakes.
Finally got it off and bored out the too tight PVC. It is now correct, quite snug and secure.

But, I believe the pole is too high, so I now plan to cut the pole down 14". For the past few weekends, we have been experiencing 40+ MPH winds and it becomes a hazard to be around the dish under such conditions. Seeing how the dish responds in such strong winds, I have decided to lower it 14" to reduce the flexing of the pole. It should help. It was really too tall considering its location.

Anyway, on top of all that, I had to stop all projects as my water well and cistern stopped working. I thought my well had dried up as we had run out of water. The cistern was empty and so that became a very high priority for the wife. Can't imagine why. I mean, what do we need water for anyway when there is a dish that needs installing? Wife has unique ways of communicating with me

Anyway, turns out I had to dig up a lot of wiring from the original installation for the well pump. Found an open in the wires where the insulation and wire was nicked. Over time, it was arcing, burning, and finally opened underground. What a mess. I was able to fix it but it did take a lot of troubleshooting time.

Long story short, the joys of home ownership and bad weather have put the dish project on hold until a little later. It hasn't started snowing here yet, so there is still time. I bought some cable to start hooking things up prior to aligning the dish.

Am I having fun yet?

 

[bpalone]

So, Murphy came a callin, eh?

Sorry to hear about the issues, but be glad it wasn't 20 below with frozen ground, etc. You may have to hurry to beat the snow. The good thing is that anything coming now usually goes away within the next day or so.

Good luck.

 

[spongella]

That is one beautiful dish Fizbi. Assembling those 6 foot dish petals is fun, isn't it? If you put something like a small deck coffee table in the middle and assemble the dish around it that helps. It would help to have arms a bit longer though. Good luck with your installation, mini BUDS are fun, and the Titanium LNBs are the greatest.

You'll find some C band sats are circular only, I think 22W is one of them. Nice thing with circular pol is that you don't have to worry about skew.

Have fun.

 

[Fizbi]

Update: Cut pole down a bit, the wind is now having less effect, less wobble, etc.
I think I'm missing a bracket, but I'll just make whatever I need from local hardware store.

Luckily, no snow yet. We currently have a heat wave at 51 degrees, so I'm going out to align dish and see what I need for a bracket. I'll be looking at photos of other installs as I work. I need to calculate and find the correct dish angle. Goal for today is locate one strong satellite.

 

[Fizbi]

Wow, this is turning into a project and a half.

Wife called me to report the dish had fallen over. I thought she was kidding. She wasn't.

Got home and the dish was spun around and down on it's side. We had hurricane force winds today and the dish has shook so violently, the major nuts and bolts came loose to where they popped out. The wind had died enough for me to survey the damage and luckily, I didn't see any damage to the dish itself. Put it all back together and tightened it up even more. I think this weekend, I'm going to replace all the regular nuts with locking nuts and add some locktite to make sure this doesn't happen again.
One bolt in particular has a bit too much slop, so I will look for a bushing to tighten that up a tad, or find a better fitting bolt.

To give folks an idea how bad the wind gets here on a regular basis, most folks have to replace their windshields once or twice a year because the wind will pick up rocks from the side of the road and hurl them at passing cars. I also spotted several homes that lost major chunks of their residential roofs. Gotta love the Wyoming winds. This is teaching me a lot about dish mechanics.

 

[FTA4PA]

Wow, this is turning into a project and a half.

Wife called me to report the dish had fallen over. I thought she was kidding. She wasn't.

Got home and the dish was spun around and down on it's side. We had hurricane force winds today and the dish has shook so violently, the major nuts and bolts came loose to where they popped out. The wind had died enough for me to survey the damage and luckily, I didn't see any damage to the dish itself. Put it all back together and tightened it up even more. I think this weekend, I'm going to replace all the regular nuts with locking nuts and add some locktite to make sure this doesn't happen again.
One bolt in particular has a bit too much slop, so I will look for a bushing to tighten that up a tad, or find a better fitting bolt.

To give folks an idea how bad the wind gets here on a regular basis, most folks have to replace their windshields once or twice a year because the wind will pick up rocks from the side of the road and hurl them at passing cars. I also spotted several homes that lost major chunks of their residential roofs. Gotta love the Wyoming winds. This is teaching me a lot about dish mechanics.

Wow! Those are some nasty winds you have there. Sorry to hear about your dish, glad there was no major damage.

 

[bpalone]

We had some pretty good wind up here today too. Fortunately my dish was sheltered somewhat from it, by the house. Hope all goes well on the do over.

 

[Fizbi]

Back to 50+ MPH winds this week. The poor dish couldn't take it. Over time, vibration and minor oscillation tore the welded brackets apart. Did someone say this is a hobby? Oh well, worse things have happened. I will put this off until spring and try again when the wind chill isn't -98 degrees F.

To make this work, I will have to construct a wind break. Since I have 2 dishes, and only want to dial in 2 satellites, I may be better off with non-polar mounts. Just plant these things into the ground using a fixed framework of supports so they cannot possibly move one bit.

Wind was so strong today, two semi trucks collided head on. One got blown into the other's lane. Tougher day for others for sure.

Happy Holidays everyone. Be safe and warm. I'll visit this again in the spring.

 

[danristheman]

I think you magic static black box recorder for the crashed dish. You need to help hook up your black box to see last recording before the crash.

 

[bpalone]

Sorry to see/hear this. Another thought, would rebuilding the mount out of heavier metal cure the issue? Could rebuild it over the winter months and come out with something beefier that might withstand the winds. I may be wrong, but I am guessing that you will want at least one BUD with a motor. Mine stays on one satellite about 80-85% of the time, but I sure do enjoy being able to move to the others.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

 

[waylew]

Looks to me like a really crap welding job.Weld it back on and add some gussets.

 

[Titanium]

Personally, I would cut my losses with that dish. Those WSI 6 foot dishes were not well constructed and any modifications will just be putting lipstick on a pig...

Take this as the second sign from a greater power that you should keep looking through the winter for a quality BUD to adopt and install this next spring. While it will be helpful to have a windbreak, 50-75 MPH winds are nothing to a quality BUD.

 

[Fizbi]

Personally, I would cut my losses with that dish. Those WSI 6 foot dishes were not well constructed and any modifications will just be putting lipstick on a pig...
View attachment 111962

Take this as the second sign from a greater power that you should keep looking through the winter for a quality BUD to adopt and install this next spring. While it will be helpful to have a windbreak, 50-75 MPH winds are nothing to a quality BUD.

You may be right. The weld looked pretty cheezy from the start. I'm still curious as to what kind of signal I can get. I can temporarily mount one in a fixed position just to see what I can get.
I still want to build a wind break even for a very beefy system. I'm not discouraged, it's all part of a great hobby, right?!