Channel Master on DiSEqC motor?

[Captain Jack]

And so it begins...

Tell me about it.

Welp, I failed miserably today. The nails to fill up the gap wasn't a success. As soon as I put the mount on, it loosed the rings up and the thing fell apart. It did give me a chance to re-strengthen my current set up though.

So, I am not sure what to do now.

1) Try and find something to "fill" the gap to take the pole from 50mm OD to 54mm OD over which I can fit my rings, taking it further to 76mm. I was thinking of something like steel sleeves I could fit over the pole with a decent enough thickness. I guess I would need a thickness of 2mm?

2) Get a 3" pole from somewhere and try to somehow fit it to my balcony. It has to be at least 2.3 metres long to clear the gutter/roof.

3) Forget the whole idea and just get a larger dish to put on the existing motor. I really wish I just a slightly larger dish than my Penta 85. 5E Nordic suffers in heavy rain and I wouldn't mind receiving 66E properly (can only receive 1 TP at the moment from there). I guess a 1m Gibertini would be a good step up but these are as rare as hen's teeth on the 2nd hand market. And new are expensive.

4) Forget the whole idea completely and stick with what I have.

Any other ideas?

 

[aceb]

1) Try and find something to "fill" the gap to take the pole from 50mm OD to 54mm OD over which I can fit my rings, taking it further to 76mm. I was thinking of something like steel sleeves I could fit over the pole with a decent enough thickness. I guess I would need a thickness of 2mm?

A Jubilee clip that has had the adjusting bit cut off and a single wrap of tape just to hold it on while you do up everything?

2) Get a 3" pole from somewhere and try to somehow fit it to my balcony. It has to be at least 2.3 metres long to clear the gutter/roof.

If you do source one let me know where, I might need a 5m length!

3) Forget the whole idea and just get a larger dish to put on the existing motor. I really wish I just a slightly larger dish than my Penta 85. 5E Nordic suffers in heavy rain and I wouldn't mind receiving 66E properly (can only receive 1 TP at the moment from there). I guess a 1m Gibertini would be a good step up but these are as rare as hen's teeth on the 2nd hand market. And new are expensive.

I *might* be getting rid of mine, once the 1.2 is up and I know it's staying I'm going to lend mine to someone but it might be up for grabs after.

4) Forget the whole idea completely and stick with what I have.

Now you know that's not realistic don't you

 

[RimaNTSS]

What if making something like this (picture), if I understood problem right. Stick it on any pipe, make plumb by tightening 6 bolts, and then upper part will be easily adjusted in horizontal direction together with antenna.

 

[RimaNTSS]

OK, that was all about mounting antenna on the motor... than forget my last post, it belongs to another opera.

 

[Captain Jack]

A Jubilee clip that has had the adjusting bit cut off and a single wrap of tape just to hold it on while you do up everything?

Possibly. Not sure how tough that will be? Can I get a wide clip? The ring is 1.5cm wide, so I'd want the clip at least 2cm wide. I guess I can just wrap it around the pole until I make up the short fall.

If you do source one let me know where, I might need a 5m length!

Probably your local metal works will have some lying around. In fact, they'd probably have the answer to my whole dil

I *might* be getting rid of mine, once the 1.2 is up and I know it's staying I'm going to lend mine to someone but it might be up for grabs after.

I'll keep you in mind!

Now you know that's not realistic don't you

Erm.... !

 

[Captain Jack]

What if making something like this (picture), if I understood problem right. Stick it on any pipe, make plumb by tightening 6 bolts, and then upper part will be easily adjusted in horizontal direction together with antenna.

That would probably work quite well but I would need a welder to do this... and also need to know how to weld!

 

[RimaNTSS]

Why do not you purchase another piece of 70mm pipe, preferably made of INOX, and replace everything by it? I think that it is very important to have stable and reliably fix for polar-mount. Some time ago I had also placed pole for antenna in the corner of balcony, that was 60mm heavy-metal pipe to hold toroidal antenna. Fixed that pipe with 1x8mm screw and several plastic straps.

 

[Captain Jack]

Definitely need stability. I am in an awkward situation here as I cannot drill anything anywhere (rented place) and the pole needs to be at least 2.3 metres long - 76mm poles seem to be difficult to get hold of here. I have a short (about 1m) ground stand with a 76mm pole on it but.. it's short. I guess I could extend it somehow, but not sure how (exhaust pipe couplers and attach the middle bit to the top of the balcony rail with some clamps perhaps?).

Something tells me it might just be easier to put a larger but lighter dish on my current motor? Maybe replace the crappy one I have with a Dark motor - they seem to be better built.

Or.... maybe I should just wait and see what the strength of the new satellite at 5e going up in June will be like. Maybe it will be better with a current dish anyway.

 

[RimaNTSS]

You will need welder anyway.
What about something like this but only longer to stick on existing pipe:

 

[mariust5]

Have a look at the scaffolding clamps , for extending the pole , i think you can get them in different sizes 320705546025 .

 

[Captain Jack]

@mariust5 Scaffold clamps are 50mm not 76mm.

@RimaNTSS Yep, that would work too! Would you like to come over and make such a thing for me? Unless you can buy them somewhere? What are they called?

 

[aceb]

How about short section of 76mm pipe, drill 4 holes in it, two above two & 120° apart then weld an M16 nut over each hole. That will slide over the existing 50mm tube tightening the bolts will clamp it all together. I've got pretty much the same thing on my radio mast, the 75mm spiggot with the rotator on it sits on top of a short length of 50mm tube in the top of the mast. It's never moved and has some serious wind loading and rotational leverage above it.

 

[Captain Jack]

Aceb, yep, that's a similar thing to RimaNTSS's one. Sounds like it's the best thing to do. I am sure I can find a local welder to do this for me... Now, where on earth do I get a short section of a 76mm pole? Local metal works, here I come...

 

[RimaNTSS]

make such a thing for me?

Make drawing, send to me and I can ask local welder to make it. Than he will also announce the price. Of course shipping coasts will be added on top and that could be quiet heavy. I can try to deliver that to London for free, and from your capital you take it yourself.

 

[Captain Jack]

Hey everyone - it's up! Been pondering a long time on how to do it, taking ideas from here, eBay and various other sources. In the end I bought two exhaust pipe couplers of different sizes and put them on the pole. The rings now go around that. Originally, I was thinking of taking the assembly to a local metal works place and get them to weld everything in place but the fit is so tight that there was no need.

Some pictures here - to be honest, it doesn't look much bigger than the Penta 85 but signal levels are much higher than before. In fact, due to a short cable run, the signal levels is only slightly lower (4-5% SNR on the Uno) than from my 1.2M Channel Master dish. I guess the long cable (I think 35-40m) took a lot out of the signal.

Sadly 66E is not much stronger than with the Penta and still breaks up. The NNTV/Rossiya 1 transponder keeps drifting in and out of lock but I guess that's because of low elevation rather than anything else. 68.5E is also a drifter but the signal is strong enough not to break up. On some channels the SNR drifts between 50 and 70% SNR in a space of a few seconds!

Thanks to everyone for advice and ideas!

 

[PaulR]

Looks good Jack.

I would spray the sleeves with Waxoyl now as they will only be mild steel with a thin coat of paint.

 

[satelliteman]

Nice job, some great pictures ;)

 

[Captain Jack]

Looks good Jack.

I would spray the sleeves with Waxoyl now as they will only be mild steel with a thin coat of paint.

The exhaust sleeves or the Jack itself? I take it Waxoyl is different from WD40?

 

[PaulR]

Well they may both be mild steel but the wall thickness is the key; it's the exhaust sleeve you have to worry about.

Waxoyl (other rustproofing products are available) is used extensively in the classic car restoration business to protect inside box sections, doors and the like. It has a consistency just a bit softer than petroleum jelly and has the ability to "creep" a bit so it can flow into cracks and follow flexing panels.

It's probably a bit of overkill for you but, unlike WD40 and similar, it doesn't evaporate although it does "set" a little bit.

 

[Lazarus]

You can get Waxoyl (Other rustproofing products are not as versatile IMHO) in Aerosol form and the can comes with a flexi-pipe (as per WD40 tins) for getting the stuff into crevices (I really, really hope Sonnetpete doesn't see this ............).

Got some to protect our Cars - necessitated by a design flaw which causes the windscreen drains to pour water all over the master cylinder mounting plate on the bulkhead of the Grande Punto. Tricky place to access, yet Waxoyl did the job.