Heavy-duty groundstand base in a hurry

[Huevos]

Heavy-duty groundstand base in a hurry.

Materials: twelve 50kg concrete blocks, 4.5 metres of angle iron, nuts and bolts.

Advantages: you can get it up quick while the missus is out shopping; no concrete mixing involved; not subject to planning as it is not fixed down (except by gravity).

Disadvantages: it's only semi-permanent so the missus might ask you to take it down.











Edit: I don't understand why the pictures don't stay in the correct order.

 

[Hakon]

Nice idea for a groundstand.

 

[satelliteman]

Looks a sturdy enough mount for a 1.9m

 

[rolfw]

Nice job., have placed the images in the post using the paperclip icon in advanced.

 

[Huevos]

Looks a sturdy enough mount for a 1.9m

I would have thought it would be fine for a 2.4 as well. Maybe make the footprint a little bit bigger. If I had had a bit more time I would have got the welder out and made a stand from scratch that didn't utilize the factory part with some triangulation in it, but I didn't have much time and anyway once I got this together it was surprizing how little flex it had.

 

[wod]

Looks good.

You have a larger dish up now for c band ?

 

[Huevos]

Looks good.

You have a larger dish up now for c band ?

No, that dish is fixed on 28E. 28E was always a pain for me because it needs a big dish, so if the missus was recording anything I couldn't use that dish for anything else. Now I have that dish I can record 2 things at once from 28E and still use my 1.5 dish for whatever I fancy. I've got fixed LNBs on every channel in my bouquets (except my C-band bouquet). Right now that's 45E, 42E, 28E (dual), 26E, 23E, 19E, 16E, 13E, 9/10E, 7E, 4.8E, 1W, 5W, 7W & 30W. Then I've got the Ku-band and the 2 C-band LNBs on the 1.5m dish and the Fibo to fill in any "gaps".

 

[wod]

sounds like your sorted for all the satellites pretty much.

looking at that mount its give me an idea of making a quick mount for my cm 1.2 fixed for 5e using a spare piece of 3inch and some broken pieces of paving slabs I have doing nothing.

 

[mattsnapper]

great stuff!

after reading lots of posts from newbies, and certainly for me, getting the pole 100% vertical is an obvious priority, perhaps the mods of this fine forum could start a DIY section for such things as this... finding those little buggers in the sky is only half the job, the other is preparation, fixing and mounting

 

[Huevos]

getting the pole 100% vertical is an obvious priority

On a fixed dish it's not important.

 

[Captain Jack]

Hm, that's an interesting mount. How would you get the pole vertical for a motorised dish? I guess you could invest in some adjustable legs/feet at the base of the pole.... Or something like this:

Also, what drill bits did you use to drill into the slabs? I have an SDS drill but it took me forever to drill into a reinforced concrete slab on my parents' outhouse building roof. I think they were just normal masonry bits... (all blunt now)

 

[RimaNTSS]

Of course, it is ideal situation when you have pole dead-vertical, but it is not always the case. It is much easier to get polar-mount mechanism vertical, and usual those polar-mounts have their own adjusting screws.

 

[aceb]

CJ, if you look back through the C band forum you should see some photos of mine when I originally installed the 1.2m. Threaded rod is cheap enough, sink it into some concrete with some bracing then a few nuts and washers holding down the ground post but same principle could be used for concrete blocks. An SDS shouldn't have any problems drilling into concrete?. Think it took about 5 minutes to get the ground post vertical using an inclinometer app on my phone.

 

[timo_w2s]

Also, what drill bits did you use to drill into the slabs? I have an SDS drill but it took me forever to drill into a reinforced concrete slab on my parents' outhouse building roof. I think they were just normal masonry bits... (all blunt now)

Hehe, I remember trying to drill into a large paving slab to bolt down a post for two small dishes. Went through two drill bits to do two holes (out of four). Gave up after that as even with ear plugs my hearing was going it was making an awful noise and the neighbours where probably not impressed... 10 years later the stand is still rock solid with just the two bolts holding it down.

 

[Lazarus]

Ditto fitting a Patio Mount plate to a paving slab.

Took me two mornings and a brief attack of vibration white finger to drill four 10mm holes with an ancient Black & Decker Electric Drill and a Masonry Bit.

But by jingo I got there.

Pardon?

 

[Captain Jack]

CJ, if you look back through the C band forum you should see some photos of mine when I originally installed the 1.2m. Threaded rod is cheap enough, sink it into some concrete with some bracing then a few nuts and washers holding down the ground post but same principle could be used for concrete blocks. An SDS shouldn't have any problems drilling into concrete?. Think it took about 5 minutes to get the ground post vertical using an inclinometer app on my phone.

Yep, that's how I would do it for a permanent installation but with me renting these days, I need something more temporary. And this one looks like a good workaround.

In my old, owned, house, I just stuck a scaffold pole into concrete and made it as vertical as I could before concrete set. Then reinforced it with two more poles near the top - it was very sturdy.

I think the key is the good SDS drill bits as well as the drill - mine just took forever to make 4 holes. To make the pole vertical there, I used washers for spacing! It works...