Windy! Anyone else got a dish in the wrong direction!

**OldBen** · 18-01-2007

DOH! Came home tonight and just checked the roof tiles are still on, had one replaced earlier this week from last weeks wind, and either 19.2 has moved... or I have some wind adjustments! Anyone else have a dish now pointing in a new direction?! Paul

***2cvbloke*** · 18-01-2007

At least your dish is still up!!!

Just glad I have no dishes outdoors, otherwise I'd probably have lost them by now...

Have fun putting it back into place...

**OldBen** · 18-01-2007

Originally Posted by 2cvbloke

Have fun putting it back into place...

Yeah thanks for that

I had some expert help the first time so suspect the motor to pole is sound, so I am pretty sure either the dish to the motor bracket has slipped, or the motor itself has jumped some gears and spun round. Its a bit dark at the moment, have to have a good look in the morning.

I know it was today as well, as I was watching CNN news this AM and it was find, little bit of breakup every now and again but mostly solid as a rock.

Time to get the ladder out at the weekend then! Wish I had the space to have ground level dish - much easier to work on!

***2cvbloke*** · 18-01-2007

Best thing to do in wind like today's is to stow the dish so that the dish's side is against the wind, that way the wind should just blow around it like the rudder on a ship...

Of course, I've never had to do this as I've never had a motorised dish...

***johnsattuk*** · 18-01-2007

Originally Posted by 2cvbloke

Best thing to do in wind like today's is to stow the dish so that the dish's side is against the wind, that way the wind should just blow around it like the rudder on a ship...

Of course, I've never had to do this as I've never had a motorised dish...

Bit like a wing, can generate quite high forces sideways on, and also can cause severe vibrations which can loosen the fastenings. Mine feels solid as a rock by hand, but looking out of the window, I am amazed how much it is moving about in the wind.

18-01-2007

I am in south wales on the side of a mountain and have seen a few trees and aerials down around my area today but my 1.2m andrews is solid as a rock but then again the andrew's is a

professional high grade dish and ain't going no where

,

But in hurricane winds the andrews dishes below 2.4 should be moved as it says in the pdf below
http://www.andrew.com/search/docviewer.aspx?docid=7035

**the_happy_traveller** · 18-01-2007

God knows how, but my Porty dish supported on the back bedroom window with its suction cup mounting hasn't moved an inch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Flapping about a bit yes, but I'm sat watching Eurosport on 19e (analogue) and it's one of the best pictures I've had in ages :-)

***2cvbloke*** · 18-01-2007

Originally Posted by the_happy_traveller

God knows how, but my Porty dish supported on the back bedroom window with its suction cup mounting hasn't moved an inch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Flapping about a bit yes, but I'm sat watching Eurosport on 19e (analogue) and it's one of the best pictures I've had in ages :-)

I remember when I first managed to mount my Porty dish outside, I got home after a failry windy day and it had moved about 40 degrees to the left (looking from the back), turned out I hadn't tightened the screws enough...

But the suction cups are amazing!!! I had it stuck on the windowsframe indoors, and it refused to budge, but it made the paint underneath bubble up...

**Llew** · 18-01-2007

Glad I installed my dish to a new location and higher up on Tuesday. Today has been a severe test on the installation, and would have found any weaknesses. No movement laterally or otherwise, just the usual wobbling of the dish in the gusts.

Glad I opted for a 3 inch dia. pole

Llew

***wod*** · 18-01-2007

mines moved and looks like its bent but i'm in a very exposed location

dishes with polar mounts are these stronger as the mount fixes the dish somehow ? as you never hear of these moving about

UPS1950 · 18-01-2007

My triax 78cm dish was originally set up on a temporary tripod arrangement (a cement mixer stand). If you know the new triax design, it is very easy to assemble and goes up quick, great until the wind pushes your dish over and the swinging arm hits your dish, destroy's your LNB and dints your dish!

So armed with home made brackets (unistrut) and 10mm threaded rods bolted through the wall of a brick outhouse, an old scaffolding pole and the usual clamps it has survived the high winds experienced today, result!

I will replace the dish later this year and go up to 90/100cm, what's out there, that other members can recommend?

**Analoguesat** · 18-01-2007

Its TOTALLY calm here

***wod*** · 18-01-2007

yeah but hasn't scotland got the snow

***2cvbloke*** · 18-01-2007

Originally Posted by Analoguesat

Its TOTALLY calm here

It seems that most of the bad weather hit us lot down here, 8 deaths total, 5 of them here in Lancashire!!! Luckily, I don't think any were caused by stray dishes...

**Analoguesat** · 18-01-2007

Originally Posted by wod

yeah but hasn't scotland got the snow

Its all melted round here

**Analoguesat** · 18-01-2007

Storm lashed?

http://www.xcweather.co.uk/

**OldBen** · 18-01-2007

Originally Posted by johnsattuk

Bit like a wing, can generate quite high forces sideways on, and also can cause severe vibrations which can loosen the fastenings. Mine feels solid as a rock by hand, but looking out of the window, I am amazed how much it is moving about in the wind.

Its a bit like my roof tile that I had replaced earlier in this week, I am sure they did a good job, and I am happy the old one did land in the back garden not on my car out front, but in general its best not to think about the whole thing ;-)

So 19.2 is almost parrallel with the wall, problem is Dish is on side that is tunnel-like with next door's wall. Better than 30w though which points the dish almost full on into the wind like a sail

I am sure its easy to fix, once the wind stops, its my fault really as I was onyl commenting to someone in the office today how strong the signal is as when it was setup I am pretty sure it was spot on!

Well the power just went off so even if the dish was straight I could still not watch TV

***2cvbloke*** · 18-01-2007

Originally Posted by OldBen

Well the power just went off so even if the dish was straight I could still not watch TV

That's where a UPS comes in handy (no, not the delivery company!!), they don't have to be used with computers...

**OldBen** · 18-01-2007

Originally Posted by Analoguesat

Storm lashed?

http://www.xcweather.co.uk/

Not sure thats right, it says 31MPH under the arrow nearest to me, yet the wooden gates at work on the rubbish bin area in the car park ripped there somewhat solid mouting off and were flailing in the wind, waaayyyy more than 30mph to do that!

Recomendation for securing flailing gates - US kettle leads, the plugs are useless here and we had a box of them at work, one tied at the top, one at the bottom, problem solved

Well at least secured long enough for the working day to end and me to move my car to a safe distance

**OldBen** · 18-01-2007

Originally Posted by 2cvbloke

That's where a UPS comes in handy (no, not the delivery company!!), they don't have to be used with computers...

yeah but mine (just to be clear, am talking about the UPS here...) is only a small one, so it kept ADSL router and my little server alive for a while, but the wireless is not on it, and cause I was downstairs wireless... once had foudn torch, candles for misses to continue dinner cooking (stomach first, IT later...) UPS was flat.

If B&Q are stil knocking out those generators at about 100 quid a go I am sure they are going to make a killing

**Topper** · 18-01-2007

The power went off 3 times at work and the network and tills just kept on working as the 4KVAC ups ran all the back office and tills without a hiccup, the owners wanted to know why the electric was going on and off not why the tills and network were still running thus giving uninterrupted sales. What does one have to do to impress your boss?

Still the UPS has paid for itself many times over since it was installed 7 years ago. Servers and PC's for that matter do not like losing power, sometimes they don't want to restart.

***2cvbloke*** · 18-01-2007

Originally Posted by OldBen

yeah but mine (just to be clear, am talking about the UPS here...) is only a small one, so it kept ADSL router and my little server alive for a while, but the wireless is not on it, and cause I was downstairs wireless... once had foudn torch, candles for misses to continue dinner cooking (stomach first, IT later...) UPS was flat.

If B&Q are stil knocking out those generators at about 100 quid a go I am sure they are going to make a killing

I've got 2 UPS', one's just a weeny 90w one, and my other is a beefy 480w one, and in total they both cost me £10 (well, the big one was £10, the little one was free), and they work perfectly, handy for powering lights, but the little one screeches to say the power's off, but a bit of blu-tak sorted that out to a little squeak. I was going to use the little one to power the lights in my house, but it turned out to be too much work figuring out how to wire it in, where to wire it in, how not to end up powereing the whole town in a powercut...

The big one is hooked up to my main PC, but is occasionally used for electrical experimentations (just so I don't blow up the electrics in my house!!!

)...

**Analoguesat** · 18-01-2007

Ive just been reading the German Transponder News forum. One lad had lost the roof off the house but his sat reception is still perfect!

Some impressive pics here

psbridge · 18-01-2007

Just before Christmas I thought Sky had moved following a gale. I didn't appreciate what the cause was, so contacted a local installer who eventually turned up 2 weeks later, inspected the dish from the ground, pronounced it fine, and retuned 3 satellites, and left me to fill in the gaps.
I actually bought a new receiver and have struggled for the past 3 weeks to fine tune all the sats it could receive. Like many other parts of the country, Suffolk had a fair old storm today, everything seemed to have survived outside, so settled down to watch Sky, and there it was gone yet again! Luckily I had a written record this time of every counter reading for each satellite, so shouldn't be too painfull to restore it all again by adding the number of revolutions that it was out.
Question: If it has done it twice now, does this mean a worn / faulty actuator rod. Sadly I can no longer climb long ladders so need to have an idea of why this has happened because presumably left to its own devices, it will happen again at the next gale. I will probably have to look for a new engineer and suggest what the fault was and not leave him to find an easy way out. I appreciate a comment previously by a member that it is best to turn the dish sideways on, unfortunately the gale started from the SW, but veered WNW mid afternoon with gusts on my wind gauge of over 60 mph. I considered turning it, but decided that I might be asking for trouble against a gale of that ferocity.

Cheers

Peter