New project-Primestar to polar mount

[turbosat]

The work goes on-I finally am having some good luck with this project. Today after the rain left (yep finally we got some rain over the last 5days or so) I set up in the yard with the small tv and the old Coship receiver that has most of the current channels scanned in already. After some readjusting angles, I now have the 1M primestar tracking pretty closely, and getting very good signal readings on most birds.
I can go from G10 east to AMC9 so far with current adjustments and get 69-70% quality readings on most of the popular channels on G10, IA5, IA6, G11, AMC3 and 9.
But-for some reason the dish no longer sees AMC4 or AMC1 at all. (skew?)
And nothing east of AMC9 without further raising of the elevation of the whole dish.
I think the prob is in the declination of the original c-band mount-ring, possibly coupled with a minor east-west tracking error. Find out tomorrow maybe.
For what its worth, on G10 vertical 11720 my quality readings went from 45-50 to
75-77, and the 11800 channels went from 60-65 to 80-85 compared to my regular
prime=focus 5' solid ku dish. Never seen numbers that high on G10 and they are similar improvements on the IA5 channels. Must be a dang good ol primestar lnbf on that 1m lol. Or I need a Norsat on the prime-focus 5'dish.

 

[tvropro]

For what its worth, on G10 vertical 11720 my quality readings went from 45-50 to
75-77, and the 11800 channels went from 60-65 to 80-85 compared to my regular
prime=focus 5' solid ku dish. Never seen numbers that high on G10 and they are similar improvements on the IA5 channels. Must be a dang good ol primestar lnbf on that 1m lol. Or I need a Norsat on the prime-focus 5'dish.

Equity's quality went up alot 2 days ago on 11720 on my 81e ADTH dish. I was peaking at 76. The darn problem with Equity is they change so much you don't know if you are getting better reception or not. Drives me nuts when Im out there turning the wrench. :shocked

 

[adrian]

Offset dish on polar mount

Face dish true south,skew on zero.Set Lat and declination angles for your area.Ascertain elevation angle of notional satellite in the dish position and adjust dish to this angle , by measure from bottom of dish to top of lnbf.Use a thin wooden rod with inclometer placed on top of the rod.Move dish to strongest sats,west/east/centre.If all your measurements are correct ,you should only need fine tuning.The above worked for me.

 

[turbosat]

Thanks Adrian I will try that, if it ever stops the raining, haha. I can't complain if its rained almost every day for a week now though, since it really hadn't in about 2 months!

 

[turbosat]

Nearly done

I think I have the worst part over-my dish seems to be tracking pretty good now, once I increased the angle of declination a bit more with some longer bolts. (Dang that AMC1 weird skew, no Pentagon channel) Once I tightened everything down, I seem to have lost some quality points on the ends, G10 still gets in the 50's, AMC6 NBC channels in the 40s, so I need to do a bit of small adjustment tomorrow before I put on a motor. I noticed pushing down a fraction on G10 brought the quality figures back up to the higher numbers I had, so I think the east/west is STILL not exact. Almost afraid to mess with that again lol. All the other birds it is getting quality # around 68=70% and I can't complain there.
The skew thing threw me, I finally remembered that I may have taken that lnb apart from the feedhorn once, and when I put it back together I may have turned the thing a 1/2 or 1/4 turn when putting the 4 screws back in=hence the Skew scale on it is way off. Since it seems to be getting both polarities on everything and its set at -40, it must really be at zero. This one I think had been sitting on the lnbf in the dirt someplace when it was given to me and had sand up inside the lnb throat. I took apart to clean it, never dreaming it would work. But it works great.

 

[turbosat]

Its Alive

Wow the new primestar-on-cband polar mount project has come along. FInally got it tracking the arc, bolts all in (only forgot ONE lol) everything's tight and I put the superjack on it this evening. Once I moved the clamp down a little so it would west enough for G10, I was set. Gets great signal so far, on everything except AMC1-but that was expected due to its out-of-whack skew setting. BUT, it does pick up the Pentagon Channel, with only a 25quality reading but thats good enough. Funny thing, it picks up the beach cams at about 80%quality. Go figure.
Getting a 70%quality on Montana PBS, never saw numbers that high for it.
If anybody wants any more pics of it, let me know. The whole thing was less than 30bucks worth of steel plate and bolts and washers. I used a Directv AT9 dish mount to hold the primestar 1m to the polar mount, some strange angles were necessary in the end, but it's working much better than I ever thought.
Now it needs some paint!

 

[Anole]

I would've thought you could come up with a better use for the DirecTV AT9 mount, but if it got you going, it has served ya well.

You motorized the jack? No more vice-grips?
Show me the beef! We want more pictures.
How long a jack was needed?
You see my thread mentioning the cheap 18" jack?

When I first read your last post, I thought you'd gone C-band and were bragging about a new LNB!
Really took me by surprise there for a moment !

PS: ya ever get those three Invacom SNH-031's ?

 

[turbosat]

some pics

I think my engineering comes out better than my digital photography-but here's a few of the final product. Dang it DOES need some paint lol, I hate bare metal.
There's a guy wire running thru one but maybe you can see the general idea.
A piece of skid-plate I had lying around attached to the dish, dish/plate bolted to the AT9 -swivel mount, and all that bolted to 1/4" flat steel which bolted to existing holes in the polar mount. Average ol 18"superjack that I stole off my prime-focus dish (until I can get another one) It tracks from AMC6 to G10 and that's all I need to see in the sky.
Haven't ordered the invacom yet, I want to try this direcpc-lnbf out first since I don't need a 3x4 switch for that and it's prob a better lnbf than the orig round primestar.
Has been a fun project though.
Had to raise the bottom of the big plate on the c-band ring though, due to the way the AT9 mount is made I had way too much declination
available, all in the wrong direction. So I improvised with some 3" bolts. With the angle-meter I figured out the right adjustments to hit the tracking, while leaving the c-band ring at its orig elevation.

 

[voomvoom]

Nice pictures Turbo! That reminds me of a dish I spotted on US341 south, between Roberta,Ga. and Fort Valley,Ga. There is/was a 10' fiberglass with a D* dish mounted on the buttonhook in the middle of the 10' dish. Strange to say the least? I recently went by there and the 10' dish is gone, with the D* dish now fastened to the former pole of the 10' dish. I wish I had taken a picture of it, it looked really wierd? Yours looks wierd too, but it's the results that count. Whatever it takes, Good Job!

Al

 

[Anole]

That certainly leaves me speechless !

It's a great example of what sort of reverse offset one needs , when putting an offset dish on a polar mount.
Congrats on getting it working so well.

Keep us informed on the DirectPC LNB, and the paint-job.
You made pretty short work of everything, especially considering the weather.
Hope the lizards didn't drown

 

[linuxman]

Great work Turbosat!!

I like creativity, and as Al said, the results are what counts.

The pictures are great!

Fred

 

[turbosat]

It was a trick to figure out a way to get the right elevation with what I had. I wanted an easy way to skew the dish, and when this AT9 fell in my lap I decided it was excellent due to its very heavy construction. It was easy as setting a dishnetwork dish's skew with that thing. But it had more than enough declination and was maxed out on its elevation low-side. So, only thing to do was pick something UP. I did learn that 1/4" steel will flex a little, right in the middle where the mount is bolted on-I could goof up the pictures on the fta box by pushing/pulling up or down right in the middle, at the bottom of the plate. So far though it doesnt seem to be moving now that the rec is moved indoors, or if it does, it stops as soon as the dish stops moving. I can brace it if it become noticeable later though. Educational ordeal , haha.
Appreciate all the comments!!

 

[turbosat]

Final inspection & more

Found this little creature inspecting the works this afternoon-jumped right off ON me, then on pants leg when I came down the short ladder>here's one of the kids, Anole!

 

[Anole]

heh !

Tiny little things.
You're gonna have to feed 'em better.