When working on a dish with a ladder....

[cracklincrotch]

Make sure that your ladder has all of it's feet on the ground. And try to work on ladders in daylight no matter how desperate you are to tweak.

Was out tweaking my BUD because its skew was off. But it's 9' in the air and the 6' step ladder went left and I went to the right, falling about 5'. I'd have hit my head of a good size rock except that I somehow managed to get my right arm over the RG6 coming off the dish and that caught me. But that in itself had consequences as it broke the cable. The RG6 is now taught coming off the LNB where there was 6" of slack. At least I was on the phone with the wife who was giving me Q readings off the Azbox when I fell so she knew something was up if I didn't get up.

Now the dish has to come down to readjust the LNB in the scalar, replace the 8' RG6 section from the LNB to the side of the dish, and put it back up, 9' in the air. And I have to straighten out the ladder.

Good thing I somehow know how to fall "correctly". I got a little bit of a stiff back after an hour but I got some wine into me so I'm not feeling as bad as I could.

 

[Cadsulfide]

Lucky you didn't get hurt.

 

[tds04]

Wow glad your ok. This could have been alot worse.

It is good practice to have someone hold the ladder. I learned this lesson the hard way when working at home alone. The risk isn't worth it.

 

[Anole]

Gold Sponsors, a new sat accesory?

Is it time we started wearing our bicycle helmets when going onto the roof or up a ladder?
Feel free to use a football or motorcycle helmet, if ya got one. -

Glad to hear you're okay.

 

[Mr Tony]

I'm staying off my roof for now

16" of snow and at the end of the roof is solid ice

 

[Dishman Dan]

I hope no bad bruises show up later!

When I work on my BUD I use one of those "Little Giant" type of ladders. I picked up a "Gorilla" brand at Home Depot a couple of Black Fridays ago and it is one stable ladder! This is Chinese built like others including Werner and has a 300# rating. This special was $89 for the 17' (extended) model and it is highly rated compared to the Little Giant which is quite pricey. Home Depot does not seem to stock the Gorillas anymore but the Werner looks good too! This is my satellite ladder!

 

[B.J.]

...
Was out tweaking my BUD because its skew was off. But it's 9' in the air and the 6' step ladder went left and I went to the right, falling about 5'. ....

I did that once. Was standing on the top {"Don't use this as a step"} of a similar ladder, took off the feedhorn cover only to discover a big wasp nest inside. I instantly forgot I was up in the air, and tried to run like the Wiley Coyote, only I didn't stay up in the air quite as long. Got a bad bruise because I came down on the edge of a big 4' diameter rock.
Since then, I've done most of my feedhorn work from the bucket of the front end loader on my tractor. Really convenient because any tools can fit in the bucket too. Unfortunately, I have a hydraulic leak now, so the darn bucket keeps slowly dropping, but it's usually slow enough for me to do a few adjustments.
Where I used to live, I had an old Van, the type people turn into campers, and I tied a 12' ladder to the back of it. This was secure enough that I could get WAY up there, but I had to hold on with both hands, so I usually just sat on top of the van.
Another thing I've done is that I have a utility trailer that I pull up underneath the dish, and then I put my 6' ladder on top of that. That give me another 15" or so of height, plus it is a nice flat surface for the ladder to sit on.

 

[cracklincrotch]

I did end up getting the dish working again this morning.

I found that the RG6 pulled out of a SNS6 connector a bit. When I took it off a barrel connector I also found it was exceptionally rusty and had water in it too. It's a wonder I was getting any signal at all before now. Because I don't have any more connectors (until tomorrow) I pushed the cable back into the connector best I could and used some sandpaper to clean up the wire. Back in business now, and my back is no worse for wear.

 

[Blindowl1234]

Cracklin....Glad your basically ok. Sometimes I've done something not so smart, I think its a reminder to my self that I'm not as young at 51 as I once was lol.
A few summers ago I got out my old moped and got it running, basically restored it. I never leave the house without my cellphone. I did that saturday. I hit the edge of the road, drop the moped, ended up breaking my leg in two places and broke both collar bones! After 2 weeks on the couch unable to move and three months off work I'd say I learned my lesson. I try and watch myself on ladders and the roof more than I used too...takes to long to heal. Blind

 

[cracklincrotch]

Well I shouldn't have had only three feet on the ice-coated ground to adjust the dish when I could have done it from the backside while standing on the ground.

However, now that it's all working again, I have been able to confirm that my declination is off. Of course that out of reach by about 16". Elevation too low at the ends of the arc. At least the sats I really want are near the top. Got my elevation set for those. I have to raise the elevation about 1/4" to 3/8" to get the ends of the arc to come in correctly but that means I can't get the top. I'll figure something out.

 

[Phottoman]

I'm sorry, but I *almost* laughed out loud, reading some of your exploits with roofs and ladders, so I thought I'd add mine.

I got up on the roof to remove a dish that was installed before I bought the property, only I hadn't figured on the wind blowing my ladder away while I was up there. Looking down at a 15' drop and wondering what I could do, I decided to call my sister, she lives next door, and I don't go ANYWHERE without my cell phone.

It took her half an hour to get her wheel chair out of her house and "motor" over to me, then watching her wrestle with the ladder was almost comical. And all that time, all I could do was sit on the roof, looking down and trying HARD not to laugh at my predicament.

Photto

 

[Deaver]

I use a "Gorilla" ladder as well. Glad you didn't get too bang up.