Phlatwound Takes Over Care and Feeding of the Birdview Spoon

[linuxman]

I have made arrangements with Phlatwound to come and pickup the Birdview Spoon that I "found" and have pictures of in the Adventures in Dish Hunting thread.

He will make the trip up on Saturday morning and we'll get it taken down and packed up for the trip home.

In the mean time, I drove down to the dish site and took a few more pictures and measurments to let Phlat know what he is getting.

IMHO, the dish is definitely a Ku dish. After doing some measuring of the "wedge", and taking pictures from the back, I think we will all agree that it was originally manufactured for Ku, then adpated for C-Band.

The reflector and feed support assembly are both made of steel, and not aluminum. I measure 53 inches for the focal length which is not accurate, but I couldn't reach any further. I would guess the focal length to fall in the 55 - 60 inch range to the center of the dish.

The top of the support arm is 43 inches from the reflector edge, so that gives you an idea for how far it will hang down if hauled with the dish face down on your truck Jody.

After looking at the pictures of the back, even the nay-sayers will agree that it is a ku dish.

If someone wants to determine the F/D ratio, the dish measures 7'3" on the short axis, and 8'3" on the long axis. It also looks like new holes will have to be drilled in the "wedge" to make it fit upright on the mount.

For those wanting to figure the offset, the "wedge" measures 10 inches from the backside of the dish at it's tallest point and goes down to about .5 inches at it's shortest. That span is approx 4 foot diameter. So that will give you some idea of the off-set.

Once finished, this will be the largest Ku dish I have ever seen.

Phlatwound can chime in and take over the thread, because it is his baby from here on out.

Here are todays pics:

 

[Anole]

Spoon full:

Here are a few comments I made when the dish was first documented by Linuxman.

This isn't the first Spoon we've heard of and discussed.
LoneWolf85 gave us some pictures of the one he found, about a year ago.

There's an old guy living out in the California desert, who claims to have two 8½' BVs and a pallet load of Spoons! -
I tried to send one of our more mobile members by his house last year to get a BV, but that fell through.
Unfortunately, we've lost touch, and I fear for both the dishes and his health.
Gotta get 'em when you find 'em!

Was thinking someone else had located one of these Spoons, but don't seem to find it right now.

Since Phlat is so anxious to see how this one operates, I believe we'll all have ring-side seats to the next great show! -
On with the festivities!

 

[phlatwound]

Thanks a bunch for the pics and measurements, Fred, looking forward to the trip and the harvest. :up

I believe the feed support will have to be pulled off to haul the dish face down, but we'll see. One way or the other it's heading south, in fact I know a guy that hauled a bigger dish (BV solid) to SW MO from the StL area, I'm sure he'll figure something out!

Once it's set up I bet that sucker will pick up RTV even if they aren't sending a signal from the uplink.

See ya soon!

 

[Anole]

Instead of the crating technique you've used before, consider my palletizing method.
Just used two 10' long 2x6 boards, bolts, and cargo straps.
Won't have to take the feed arm off at all.

 

[phlatwound]

Instead of the crating technique you've used before, consider my palletizing method.
Just used two 10' long 2x6 boards, bolts, and cargo straps.
Won't have to take the feed arm off at all.

Hmmm, I had forgotten about that method, thanks.

I will take a couple of 2x8s also. My rigging will have to be on top of my pickup bed rails, I wish I had a flatbed like that but I don't.

At first I was worried about that feed support sticking up in a 70 mph (+) breeze, but I see in the pics that it has a strut rod to brace it, shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Anole]

F/D from LoneWolf thread:

Ok Anole the focal lenght is 5ft 1 in.

Thanks for the measurement.
I say the F/D is: (where F= focal length and D= diameter)
5.083' divided by 7.166' width = 0.70
The "size" of an offset dish is the width, not the height,
...if it appears round to the LNB.
And the round scalar says the LNBf is looking at a round dish! :up

I am not sure how to figure the offset angle but if you tell me how to do it I will give it a try.

I tried to measure the offset of that washing tub that goes between the back of the dish and the black mount.
From your picture, I measured a very rough 15° but that's not very accurate because I didn't have a suitable angle in the picture.

Then, I tried to estimate the offset by measuring the face angle of the LNB holder (scalar mount, actually) to where I thought the center of the dish might be.
That appeared to be in the vicinity of 35°.
Again, not a very precise measure, due to not having the best picture.

If you could lay that tub down on a flat surface and measure the angle of the rim (or center, depending if you put it open side down or up, respectively), then that would be the better measure.
I'd expect it in the 20°..30° range, most likely.

The F/D was probably more interesting of the two, and it's right in the range you would expect.
Modern offset Ku-band LNBf's are in the 0.6 to 0.7 range, and should match that dish just fine.
To use a C-band LNBf, would probably require a conical scalar, as has been discussed so many times, here.

This is all from a year-old thread.
Time to build upon this info and get one of these dishes running.!.

 

[lonewolf85]

Man all these long hours at work are causeing me to miss all the fun here at SatelliteGuys.US. Linuxman Nice find and Thanks a ton for the pics I had no Idea how to put mine back together also I applaud you for giveing this dish to Phlatwound. You have a good dish there buddy and I am sure It will give fabulous service on Ku band.

 

[phlatwound]

Man all these long hours at work are causeing me to miss all the fun here at SatelliteGuys.US. Linuxman Nice find and Thanks a ton for the pics I had no Idea how to put mine back together also I applaud you for giveing this dish to Phlatwound. You have a good dish there buddy and I am sure It will give fabulous service on Ku band.

Hey Lonewolf, you got that right. Linuxman is the king of dish hunters and quite generous to boot, I really appreciate him thinking of me on this deal.

It's going to be quite the learning experience getting this one up and running, I'll be posting pics as I go.

Good to hear from you!

 

[Cadsulfide]

Soon the Queen of dishes will join the King. Linuman made a great choice in spooning it over to you.

 

[phlatwound]

Soon the Queen of dishes will join the King. Linuman made a great choice in spooning it over to you.

Thanks, Cad-s, I hope I can live up to his choice.

President Linuxman has offered me a higher position in the BVOC hierarchy if I am actually lucky enough to get that dish functioning again:

Current position: Asst. Cook and Bottlewasher

Upgrade position: Chief Asst. Cook and Bottlewasher

 

[linuxman]

Jody made the trip up from Hilbilistan just fine. He arrived at the dish site about 11:00 AM, and he, his brother Tom, and my son made short work of taking down the dish and getting it loaded up.

No bolts broken off, and all went very smoothly. It is a fine looking dish, and will make a great Ku dish for him. He should arrive back home before dark.

Jody had an electric impact wrench which made it very nice getting the mount bolts out.

I acted as supervisor, so I didn't even get my hands dirty.

I'm sure Jody will have lots more to say when he get home this evening.

I took lots of pictures, so enjoy.

 

[phlatwound]

The Spoon and I have landed have landed in Hillbillistan, after a rather uneventful (just the way I like it!) trip home.

As Fred said, I think I've got a real nice dish here, and it should be a very interesting project getting this one back in operation.

I don't have a clue what the BV designers were thinking when they designed this dish, but if anyone of them ever sees it after I get done with it they may not know whether to laugh or cry, it's going to get a makeover.

Many thanks to Fred for supervising and hooking me up on this deal, and to Nick and Thomas, couldn't have done it without all your help.

The BVOC Prez also shared a couple of neat BV removal tricks that I never would have thought of, that facilitated this project, I think he's done this before.

More pics to come, but I'm just going to think about this one for a day or 3 before I get too crazed.

 

[Anole]

While you are thinking . . .

Was talking with Fred on the way from lunch today.
I think he was really impressed with your can-do attitude - that dish was down and gone in no time!
The impact driver was sure a good idea! Kudos on that.
And I see from the pix, you made short work of the already short 6" tube, with your Sawzall.

Having been on-site and viewed the actual hardware first hand, he made some really good observations.
Apparently, the steel dish has threaded studs welded onto the back side, to attach to the "wedge".
And then the wedge has welded-in nuts, and attaches to the mount just like a regular prime-feed Birdview dish.

I think everyone agrees the wedge and dish must remain in their current orientation relative to each other, no matter how you spin the dish.
That presents a problem as the mount-holes in the back of the wedge wouldn't line up with the mount, if the dish+wedge were turned 90°.

Apparently, you guys discussed taking the wedge off the dish, then drilling the wedge, and bolting it to the mount with loose nuts inside the wedge, then dropping the dish into place.
I was thinking how clever this idea was, until . . .
Then it dawned on me how much work you'd gone to on your other Birdviews, to get proper declination.
Now, I'm thinking you may have to weld nuts inside the back of the steel wedge.
Wonder if you have the capability?

If you really just want to run Ku motorized, then there is probably no real reason to rotate the dish, other than to make it look more normal.
Sideways really does work equally.

 

[putney]

Hey neighbor! That's a cool find! I'm not far from where that one was.

I'm getting ready to pull a Perfect 10 that is too big for my uses. If you stumble on a solid 6' and want to make a trade.................


http://www.satelliteguys.us/c-band-...tures-dish-hunting-2009-a-41.html#post2011976

I'm going to Mark Twain lake for Thanksgiving and will be passing through your neck of the woods.

 

[phlatwound]

I think everyone agrees the wedge and dish must remain in their current orientation relative to each other, no matter how you spin the dish.
That presents a problem as the mount-holes in the back of the wedge wouldn't line up with the mount, if the dish+wedge were turned 90°.

Yes, the wedge and dish is an assembly whose orientation can't be changed. The wedge has to be inline with the feed support to get the downtilt for the offset.

Apparently, you guys discussed taking the wedge off the dish, then drilling the wedge, and bolting it to the mount with loose nuts inside the wedge, then dropping the dish into place.
I was thinking how clever this idea was, until . . .
Then it dawned on me how much work you'd gone to on your other Birdviews, to get proper declination.
Now, I'm thinking you may have to weld nuts inside the back of the steel wedge.

We did discuss that, but I can see getting into a chicken-and-the egg deal trying to make that work. I know it could work, but now am thinking about coming up with a variation of my BVDA (Birdview declination adjuster, patent still non-pending).

In that scheme I would tack weld some nuts to the back of the BV mount and leave the bolts that went into the wedge where they are free to spin, the threads would be engaged in the nuts on the mount. I could do that in 2 or 4 of the 6 bottom holes, then have a welded nut inside the wedge for the other 2 (or 4), stack washers and tighten the bolts in those holes.

Wonder if you have the capability?

You really know how to hurt a hillbilly, don't ya?

Actually, I am no welder, especially on light gauge, but as I told Fred, I have a buddy that can braze a beer can to a battleship!

If you really just want to run Ku motorized, then there is probably no real reason to rotate the dish, other than to make it look more normal.
Sideways really does work equally.

I can think of one reason why I need to rotate that dish......if I don't I have NO IDEA how to aim it!! The signal must come in from the side to hit that rotated feed and it obviously will work in that configuration...but if the Prez knows how to aim it he is keeping it to himself.

 

[Anole]

You really know how to hurt a hillbilly, don't ya?

Actually, I am no welder, especially on light gauge, but as I told Fred, I have a buddy that can braze a beer can to a battleship!

Okay, you had me rolling in the aisles with these! :up

I can think of one reason why I need to rotate that dish......if I don't I have NO IDEA how to aim it!!
The signal must come in from the side to hit that rotated feed and it obviously will work in that configuration...

Use the force, Luke. Use the Force! -

Close your eyes (they'll just confuse you), and put your hand on the mount!
From there on in, it's all down hill!

Actually, there is one test you should make.
It'll quell a discussion Fred and I had.
With the dish face down on a level surface, measure the tilt of the wedge on the back side.
I used to think that was the offset angle of the dish, but just now it hit me: that may not be so. -

Just remember: if the mount is at TDC...uhhh... I mean TS, and you put the Spoon on, it should point * right at the TS bird!
No more twisting the mount for azimuth will be required!


* should point:
In this case, I'm saying, the dish focuses its signal from the satellite onto the LNBF.
Not a line perpendicular to the face of the dish!

This is the same optical illusion getting an offset dish pointed at a low bird near the horizon.
- the dish may appear to be looking down at the ground by -15°, when in fact, it's looking up at +10° elevation.

 

[phlatwound]

...Actually, there is one test you should make.
It'll quell a discussion Fred and I had.
With the dish face down on a level surface, measure the tilt of the wedge on the back side.
I used to think that was the offset angle of the dish, but just now it hit me: that may not be so. -

Just remember: if the mount is at TDC...uhhh... I mean TS, and you put the Spoon on, it should point * right at the TS bird!
No more twisting the mount for azimuth will be required!...

I will attempt to measure the wedge tilt today. Do we know the offset angle of that dish....and, if not, can it be measured/calculated?

I am willing to mount the Spoon with the factory feed support orientation and give that a shot, if it will work that way I'm all for it (if for no other reason than I think it looks cool!).

 

[phlatwound]

Here's some pics, looks like 15 degrees in the wedge.

 

[phlatwound]

Here's a closeup of the 8-magnet wheel/reed sensor setup:

 

[phlatwound]

And some pics of the dish with the wedge removed, and the inside of the wedge.