When everything goes out, check everything!

[turbosat]

Had a funny failure , had been watching 97W this morning, but just now when I moved the dish up to RTV on 83, it was gone! The signal, not the dish. Went to blind scan-found nothing. Rebooted, moved to 72W-no signals again. Moved sat cable to the other receiver, no signals either. Dead lnbf, right? Out to the dish, no new trees had grown up overnight, blocking everything east of 87, lol. Pole good, cables good, lnb still there too. Hmmmm.
Check connection. Motor-to lnbf cable practically flopping loose. I wonder if the 95-97degree summer caused it to work loose, haha. Fixed by tightening and good as new. RTV has returned. Love these easy fixes.

 

[radio]

Odd things do happen! After having member NE8E of satguys design a motor drive sensor system using a rotary encoder, I thought cold was causing jumping and missing pulses last week! Turns out the mighty Birdview built up some rust where the lower moving plate on the H-H mount meets the center axis. As it passed a certain area, it bound up! Needed a dremel to remove rust, then some coating to prevent its return. Now its smooth as silk, pulses are correct, and I'm scanning without errors in finding the birds again! I've reinstalled LOTS of birdviews and never even THOUGHT to look for something like that!