Sadoun holidays special--need a little help

[tekjunkie02]

Here is a pic of my new Sadoun 180PM dish, as far as I got today.


Also, sat look images for me to hit 139w, and 30w satellites.
I'm right at 83, so this gives me a total swing of 140.6 degrees, 69.4 to the east and 71.2 to the west.
I mounted the QARL-2418+ actuator on the west side of the dish, for now.

My questions;
Can this actuator, on this dish, cover that range?
Should it be mounted on the west side or the east side?

Any other tips or tricks I should know about this dish?

Thanks to Sadoun for the holiday specials! Got the price down to where I could swing it, and get into C-band again

 

[Lak7]

First - An Actuator is not a Horizon-To-Horizon mount.
With a 36" arm I could get 139 to 43, but it struggled to lift my 10footer back up.
Biggest thing is to watch arm, and make sure as the arm extends that it will not hit the mount, or bind / loss of mechanical advantage

Rule of Thumb - East of Mississippi River, Arm goes on West side of Dish - that gives you best coverage of West Sats.
If you find you will not need the extreme West Sats, you may be better off with Arm on East side - push up from 30west.

First thing to do is get Dish aligned

 

[FaT Air]

Get 'er aligned**, then figure out which side of the dish to put the actuator. I moved mine to the east side to get lower(down to 53W) than was normally (72w) safely. It still allows 139w when extended. Keep in mind, it's not the same dish as yours. so results may vary.
** picture to get started aligning.

((It appears your's is set for like you're at 80°N))
Note: that's not my dish in this photo

 

[tekjunkie02]

Thanks F-air,

It's not setup yet at all, I just managed to get all the pieces in the right place yesterday, before dark. Everything's still loose, today it's been raining and cold, so nothing got done. I've got a pretty good idea of what I need to do, just inquiring here to get some input, see if anyone knew how much coverage I can get with this actuator, or how to calculate it? I'll be able to see it on the dish once I get it bolted up and tracking, then I'll have to decide which slice of the arc is most important to me. Nice little dish, I think I'm gonna have lots of fun with it

 

[gpflepsen]

When I set up the 8', I measured the distance from the stationary actuator bracket (clamp on the actuator tube) to the pin on the dish mount (the part that moves) when aimed at 139. 139 is as far west as I'd ever want to go. I then retracted the actuator all the way and slid the actuator in the clamp until the distance had the dish just slightly west of 139. With this set, the actuator was only a few counts beyond 139. I then took what I could get in the easterly direction, which happens to be just east of 58. This worked for me because my actuator is too short to take the dish too far and therefore it will not flop on me.

You could do a similar method and use the mechanical limits to prevent the dish from going too far in either direction.

 

[tekjunkie02]

Thanks, hopefully tomorrow(today,Monday) the weather will be better and i can get 'r done!
Trying to remember if I should use the modified declination method, or regular....hmmm?

 

[Lak7]

Use the Modified Declination chart to start and tweak from there - it's results that count, not precision measurements.

 

[gpflepsen]

But precise measurements can reduce the amount of hassles in making everything work without chasing it around.

Plumb the pole dead nuts "bubble center". Trust but verify the mount on the pole is translated to be true and plumb also. Verify any stamped gauges or indicators are correct.

One thing I did was make the dish mounting "table" or bracket completely level with the elevation adjusting rod/mounts and the actuator. I bore-sighted the dish rotation axis to my true south. Then increase the elevation to the required angle for your true south sat. For my location, the true south was practically splitting 95w and 97w. I rotated the entire assembly and marked the pole with the two satellite positions. The change in elevation for the two locations was negligible so I didn't have to swing the dish on it's pivot point with the actuator. I split the difference on the two pole marks and clamped it down there. I had the entire arc just by doing this.

Understanding how the geometry works can keep you from making mistakes in setting it up, and makes the instructions put forth easier to understand too.

Good luck.

 

[Kraven]

Good looking dish! I thought the Sadoun model was almost a carbon copy of the WSI version. The Sadoun mounting pole was an OD of 3". WSI polar mount, IIRC, needed a 2 and 5/8 OD pole. for 39$, too bad Sadoun's pole wont fit the WSI 180cm model.

Cheers, K

 

[tekjunkie02]

Thanks everyone.
It's now tracking the arc quite well. Still tweaking it out( probably be doing that for the rest of my life LOL!!, it's half the fun, isn't it?)

FYI, my biggest problem in the setup was trying to measure the angles, elevation and declination. What solved that for me was just looking at the Ku offset dish I have setup there too! I looked at it when set to my south sat, realized it was offset (lowered) by 24.6 degrees, doing that, I realized that even though I was getting what appeared to be the correct angles on the mount, it was really way too low... I pushed it on up and, BINGO!

 

[updatelee]

Here's how I think of the whole east/west mounting

when the actuator is fully retracted the dish will always be the most stable. When it is fully extended it is on the verge of flopping and is very clearly the least stable. Most people tend to get more out of one side of the arc then the other. IE I live in Alberta and my long is 113w so 113w is due south. my horizon to horizon is pretty much 40w to 185w but there really isnt any beams that far, so its really 61w amazonas to 139w amc8. So off centre I have

113w-61w = 52 deg east travel
139w-113w = 26 deg west travel

so Im better to have more control on the east and less on the west because I'll never fully extend the actuator looking west. So I mount my actuator on the east.

If you happen to live somewhere where you do actually have a perfect split of east/west satellite coverage... well then flip a coin

UDL