I thought I would share the pics of the primestar dish install for my friend who was lucky enough to find this dish and save it. I installed this dish on top of a mountain, which has terrible LOS, I was able to shoot 83w and felt we had a pretty good shot at that sat. The problem was the location was going to be on a slope down in a small gully, we couldn’t sink a pole in the ground because it’s solid bedrock. My friend got creative and with the help of a chain saw an ax, spike nails, and a hammer we put together this giant stand made out of tamarack poles.
The stand is over 8 feet tall; we had to have it at least this tall to make up for the slope and the gully. Once we carried the stand down and put it into position we had to get this thing level, with the help of a chain saw he cut off 1 foot of one leg in the front. A few minor adjustments and we had the stand as level as we were going to get it, the stand is held in place with 2 or 3 hundred pounds of rock. I climbed up the pole with a make shift ladder he made and put the dish on the mount. The stand held my weight plus the dish without budging and inch, after getting the dish ready I hooked up my cheap $10 sat meter and told my friend lets hope the sat gods are watching over us today.
I turned the dial until I got sound and then backed the dial off and moved the dish left maybe 1 degree and buried the needle with signal, I couldn’t believe I hit 83w so fast. I made a few more adjustments and locked the dish down. I made up all new cable with new compression fittings and installed a new 3x4 zinwell switch and ran a 150ft of cable to the merc2. I set up the merc and scanned in 83w, when RTV came on the TV my friend was smiling from ear to ear; that alone made this project worth it and made my day as well. The first pic is the LOS standing in front of the dish, if you look up the hill side you will see a V formed by the trees, looking at the furthest tree you can see through the V is where 83w sits.
Well an old primestar dish that was wasting away now proudly sits on top of a mountain bringing TV to someone who didn’t have any TV. :up This is all powered by solar panels and batteries with an inverter. This was a really fun install as well as changeling, I hope you guys enjoy the pics.
The stand is over 8 feet tall; we had to have it at least this tall to make up for the slope and the gully. Once we carried the stand down and put it into position we had to get this thing level, with the help of a chain saw he cut off 1 foot of one leg in the front. A few minor adjustments and we had the stand as level as we were going to get it, the stand is held in place with 2 or 3 hundred pounds of rock. I climbed up the pole with a make shift ladder he made and put the dish on the mount. The stand held my weight plus the dish without budging and inch, after getting the dish ready I hooked up my cheap $10 sat meter and told my friend lets hope the sat gods are watching over us today.
I turned the dial until I got sound and then backed the dial off and moved the dish left maybe 1 degree and buried the needle with signal, I couldn’t believe I hit 83w so fast. I made a few more adjustments and locked the dish down. I made up all new cable with new compression fittings and installed a new 3x4 zinwell switch and ran a 150ft of cable to the merc2. I set up the merc and scanned in 83w, when RTV came on the TV my friend was smiling from ear to ear; that alone made this project worth it and made my day as well. The first pic is the LOS standing in front of the dish, if you look up the hill side you will see a V formed by the trees, looking at the furthest tree you can see through the V is where 83w sits.
Well an old primestar dish that was wasting away now proudly sits on top of a mountain bringing TV to someone who didn’t have any TV. :up This is all powered by solar panels and batteries with an inverter. This was a really fun install as well as changeling, I hope you guys enjoy the pics.
