Paraclipse Hydro Midi-BUD

[phlatwound]

I got this dish a couple weeks ago and finally got a chance to set a short 3 1/2" pole to put it on. I intend to put my 1.2 Prodelin on that pole when I find/build a mount for it, in the meantime the Paraclipse Hydro will reside upon it.

This dish is spun aluminum, approximately 63" in diameter and in pretty good condition. When I got it, it had a huge plastic cover on it, but I took it off.

It had a junk actuator on it, so I swapped it for a good 18" Superjack from the boneyard, hooked it and the LNB (but not the polarotor) up to my spare Toshiba TRX-1800, ran the dish up to the apex and aimed it towards due south. I didn't touch the elevation or declination as it came from about 40 miles south and west from me, figured it should be close.

Ran the dish to the west a little and soon had the ABC/Disney slate on 99W with minimal sparklies, ran it further west and was able to see the Classic Arts channel and EWTN on G15, but they were very snowy. Tried hooking up the polarotor after that so I could change polarities/adjust skew but it didn't respond, not sure what the issue is there, yet.

Then I ran the dish back to 99W and hooked up a CS6000 to attempt digital reception. After a blindscan I had the Caribbean nets at 70%, and the MyTVs at 87%, not bad for absolutely no tweaking.

I have an SatAv SL1P - GEOSATpro SINGLE STANDARD KU PRIME FOCUS LNBF that I was considering putting on this dish, but the specs say it is matched for F/D ratio of
0.5 - 0.7

What little info I have been able to find for this dish leads me to believe it has an F/D ratio of .39, and I think most prime focus dishes typically run in the range of .25-.40. I don't understand why the SL1P says it is designed for a prime focus dish with those kind of specs, can anyone explain that? I gave a whole $5 for it in SatAv's last blowout sale so I'm pretty worried about it.

Also wondering if I should paint this dish, it's very reflective and don't want to fry my electronics?

 

[turbosat]

You could repaint it a darker color. Not sure how much danger there is of damaging electronics-I've had a little 5' dish that was an off-white color and never hurt anything in
20yrs. Usually I turned it away during the solar outages but didn't always remember to do that.

 

[phlatwound]

You could repaint it a darker color. Not sure how much danger there is of damaging electronics-I've had a little 5' dish that was an off-white color and never hurt anything in
20yrs. Usually I turned it away during the solar outages but didn't always remember to do that.

My pics don't show it well but there is no paint on the front of that dish, it is bare aluminum.

When I was up playing with the feed last night I was impressed with how much heat was reflected off the dish, it was toasty!

 

[stogie5150]

ME LIKEY....:up:up:up:up:up:up

Yeah I'd pain it flat dull grey. And for goodness sakes, paint those LNB arms!

I have never seen one of those...that is one cool dish!

 

[mjac]

Your helper appears to be a bit disinterested.

 

[Lynskyn]

Geosat's 2.4 meter prime focus dish is very flat with an F/D ratio of .46. Still out of spec but pretty close to .5. Maybe they meant for it to be used with that dish.

 

[phlatwound]

ME LIKEY....:up:up:up:up:up:up

Yeah I'd pain it flat dull grey. And for goodness sakes, paint those LNB arms!

I have never seen one of those...that is one cool dish!

Thanks Stogie, I like it too, mainly because it's an oddball...like me.

Somebody else recently posted about having or getting one that sounded very similar, and 1Captain has seen them before also. It was at my sister's house when they bought it about 15 years ago, and they actually used it for a while.

I'm going to pull it down pretty soon, will paint the dish then, feed support arms (per your orders!) are now painted.

Your helper appears to be a bit disinterested.

mjac, that is about as energetic as Champ gets, unless there is some food involved.

Geosat's 2.4 meter prime focus dish is very flat with an F/D ratio of .46. Still out of spec but pretty close to .5. Maybe they meant for it to be used with that dish.

Thanks Lynskyn, I hadn't thought of that, you may be on to something there.

If anyone has one of those adapters to graft a 40mm throat LNBF onto a tri-leg C-band feed support that's not being used, let me know and I'll try to trade you out of it.

I put a Corotor on it yesterday, had similar results on C-band (good analog and digital signal @ 99W, but not much elsewhere), never got a whiff of Ku but didn't have much time to tweak.

Haven't touched the elevation and declination so they are probably off, but I still am having trouble understanding how to measure and set those angles with my inclinometer.....think I need to spend some more time at the Geo-orbit site.

 

[stogie5150]

John Deere Green....what a guy.....:up

Now paint the dish JD yellow and you will be ROCKIN! Just have to get flat yellow....LOL

 

[Anole]

JD?

Heck, I thought it was a shade of lizard-green, and was gonna compliment him on his good taste!

Now Phlatwound and TurboSat can have a Battle of the Painted Dishes contest! -

 

[Techfizzle]

that looks like the dish i got a no on, except a diffrent mount and a buttohook feed

 

[phlatwound]

John Deere Green....what a guy.....:up

Now paint the dish JD yellow and you will be ROCKIN! Just have to get flat yellow....LOL

JD Yellow, eh? Hmmmmm....... only downside is my neighbor could see it (through a rifle scope) from his hay field......and he's a big New Holland supporter!!!!!

Heck, I thought it was a shade of lizard-green, and was gonna compliment him on his good taste!

Now Phlatwound and TurboSat can have a Battle of the Painted Dishes contest! -

All compliments are accepted, Anole, but truth be told, I actually had about 10 cans of that color green left over from a 600 unit mini storage door installation project I did a couple years ago. There is a LOT of stuff around the farm here, painted in JD Lizard tone.

I do think a nice JD Lizard Green/Yellow dish would give Turbo a run for the money in that contest though.

 

[1captain]

If anyone has one of those adapters to graft a 40mm throat LNBF onto a tri-leg C-band feed support that's not being used, let me know and I'll try to trade you out of it.

Hi Platwound.

you need a lnb-f with a prime focas scalar ring to have a good performer on ku, I have tried a lnb-f for a offset dish an they do work pretty good to fair, but when you have the right parts they will perform so much better.

Have a friend that uses that same dish, but only for Ku with a older lnb-f that has a adjustable scalar ring on it for a prime focus style dish. an this is what he did, he cut a circle from a piece of 1/4" lexan, about the same size of a c-band scalar ring. then he use the scalar as a guide to drill 3 holes for the feed legs to bolt to. then he took a small hole saw an drilled out the center, to clear for the feed throat, so he could bolt the baby ku-scalar ring on the lexan. it is preaty neat the way he did it, an that dish is a great performer on ku.

now he has it retired, after I just fabed up a Ajax mount to a 1.2m dish that he had for years, an he pick up a little more gain with the offset over the prime focus.

good luck you should enjoy it, they are great playing dishes.

 

[brentb636]

Your helper appears to be a bit disinterested.

I think his partner is just studying the situation before he offers an opinion. He looks like he has a wise head on him.

 

[phlatwound]

Hi Platwound.

you need a lnb-f with a prime focas scalar ring to have a good performer on ku, I have tried a lnb-f for a offset dish an they do work pretty good to fair, but when you have the right parts they will perform so much better.

Have a friend that uses that same dish, but only for Ku with a older lnb-f that has a adjustable scalar ring on it for a prime focus style dish. an this is what he did, he cut a circle from a piece of 1/4" lexan, about the same size of a c-band scalar ring. then he use the scalar as a guide to drill 3 holes for the feed legs to bolt to. then he took a small hole saw an drilled out the center, to clear for the feed throat, so he could bolt the baby ku-scalar ring on the lexan. it is preaty neat the way he did it, an that dish is a great performer on ku.

now he has it retired, after I just fabed up a Ajax mount to a 1.2m dish that he had for years, an he pick up a little more gain with the offset over the prime focus.

good luck you should enjoy it, they are great playing dishes.

hey Captain, that sounds pretty cool what your friend did with the lexan to make that mount, I'd like to see a pic of that sometime.

Just for a test I put that SL1P LNBF on my .9m 3ABN offset, as far as I can tell it performs about the same as the Techsat Tracker red LNBF that I had on there. Hopefully I can come up with a way to mount it to this Hydro, I'd like to see what it would do on Ku on that dish.

I think his partner is just studying the situation before he offers an opinion. He looks like he has a wise head on him.

brent, in this case looks may be deceiving, that isn't the dumbest dog I've ever seen, but lets just say he's more of a "doer" than a "thinker".

 

[phlatwound]

Spent a few hours playing with the midi-BUD today and was able to get digital C-band at 87, 99, 107.3, 121 & 125, further west than that looks into a walnut tree. Still not a whiff of Ku but I don't think my feed is quite perfectly centered.

The inclination and declination were both quite a bit off, and there is some slop in the top bushing on the pivot bolt that I couldn't get rid of.

Probably going to pull this one off the pole for now and pull that mount apart, see if I can get a bushing made for it.

I have a 7.5' mesh with a voltage-controlled Chaparral LNBF that I want to play with, it will go on there next.

 

[mjac]

there is some slop in the top bushing on the pivot bolt that I couldn't get rid of.

To hopefully head off a similar problem I replaced a worn bearing. I found one here.

SmallParts.com: The Hardware Store for Researchers and Developers

I have not placed it in service yet though

 

[phlatwound]

To hopefully head off a similar problem I replaced a worn bearing. I found one here.

SmallParts.com: The Hardware Store for Researchers and Developers

I have not placed it in service yet though

Thanks for the link, mjac. I just looked at the first page of the bearings section and would bet I will be able to find the part I need there.