It works! :-)

[delta_charlie]

Hi all, got the feedhorn mounted yesterday and managed to find Intelsat 9 at 58 west. Nice to see the old feedhorn/LNB still works. Might have to do some more aligning and centering of the feedhorn as I had to re-drill it and rotate it to get the blue servo to point at 11:00. Don't have a receiver that can control the servo so I have it set for only Horizontal polarity for now. Even so I'm still getting some interesting channels in the open and lots more with PowerVU. With my Mercury II I'm showing SL of 91% and SQ of 70% on 3880/H/27690. Perhaps I can get even better with some fine tuning of the feedhorn?

New home for the old BUD.

Check out the un-even spacing of the three legs for the feedhorn, strange design.

BTW - it is a real stretch to reach the feedhorn, I was not able to mount the cover. Need to try and figure out some way to move the dish way over to the east so I can service the feedhorn and mount the cover. With the dish pointed at 58 W it is much too hard to reach it. The actuator runs out of travel and I do not think the design of the polar mount will allow the travel I need. Got to think about that one a bit.

Got to run, DC

 

[phlatwound]

Nice job, DC, that's a good looking setup. :up

 

[eurosport]

Ahhhh..... A transplanted BUD, ...put back into service, receiving things it never could before! A beautiful sight indeed! Good job Delta-Charlie!:up

 

[Techfizzle]

what brand of dish is that??

 

[14karat]

That would be a paraclipse.
Stogie5150 has one for sale in Slidell, LA...

 

[Techfizzle]

but what brand

 

[Mr Tony]

paraclipse IS a brand

 

[Techfizzle]

then whats a pinacle ?? wierd color for a mesh

 

[delta_charlie]

Ahhhh..... A transplanted BUD, ...put back into service, receiving things it never could before! A beautiful sight indeed! Good job Delta-Charlie!:up

Hi all, yes it is receiving digital channels now. I find it a bit amazing the old analog feedhorn/LNB can receive current digital streams.

Techfizzle - " what brand of dish is that??" I believe it was made by Omega Systems. It is a paraclipse clone.

Techfizzle - "then whats a pinacle ?? wierd color for a mesh" The mesh is made from aluminum - it is un-painted bare aluminum and it was in great shape. No corrosion!

Regarding the hard to access feedhorn - what do the rest of you do? I looked more closely at the polar mount and it looks like it can move much more to the east before it hits metal; however, the actuator runs out of travel well before that. If I slip the clamp that holds the actuator to get more east travel then I will not have much west. I need to measure the travel but I think it is at least 18 maybe 24 inches. There is also the problem of the arm that the actuator mounts to on the polar mount - the angle would get out of wack if I try and move too far to the east. Might have to try and come up with some type of extension that I could grab by hand and unbolt the actuator to move it all the way east. I need to post some pictures of the polar mount so you can see what the problem is.

Got to run, DC

 

[14karat]

Feedhorn access...
Right now my actuator is set for the western birds (I can run from 89 to 148) so I just set it at the west limit, I can stand on a concrete block and look down the scalar at the center of the dish (I'm 5'6" BTW.)
My brother has a unique deal on his 10' that I will do with mine given the time...
In place of the bolt that holds the actuator to the dish, he modified his to use a hitch pin from a tractor.
Pull the pin, and drop the dish.

 

[14karat]

As far as the bare aluminum... how reflective is it? I've always thought bare aluminum would be bad for the feed... (BUD Christmas tune..."feedhorns roasting on a reflective dish...")

 

[phlatwound]

As far as the bare aluminum... how reflective is it? I've always thought bare aluminum would be bad for the feed... (BUD Christmas tune..."feedhorns roasting on a reflective dish...")

Wondered about that also, you don't see very many unpainted like that.

I'm going to guess that while a mesh dish focuses the sat signal at the feedhorn, the sunlight is actually reflected all over the place, due to the irregularities of the mesh.....or something.

 

[delta_charlie]

Wondered about that also, you don't see very many unpainted like that.

I'm going to guess that while a mesh dish focuses the sat signal at the feedhorn, the sunlight is actually reflected all over the place, due to the irregularities of the mesh.....or something.

Hi, I believe this is the case as the mesh is not cut flat, it has little angles in the cut that sends the light off to the sides. Not sure how it reflects the RF back to the feedhorn. I will leave that one for the engineers.

Later, DC