Ideal size for exploring

D4ftpunk said:
I did think about that, but I wouldn’t be able to adjust the “vertical ness” if that’s a word… of the pole if it was on uneven grass.
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Four long bolts (or threaded rod) through the bottom of the slab, one nut and big washer to attach the bolt to the slab, wind on another nut & washer and then put the post on, the second nuts can then be used to adjust the plumbness.
 
I think @ozumo’s suggestion. Sounds like a winner.

I did try out the motor last night, worked at first although very noisy compared to my other, now doesn’t turn, lights up though. Left it overnight no change, was only able to make a minor step manually but nothing more. Dunno if it’s dead or needs some kind of hard reset
 
Hope it's not dead - it had hardly been used! I do vaguely remember having to be particularly diligent about the integrity of the cable connections.
 
Lazarus said:
Hope it's not dead - it had hardly been used! I do vaguely remember having to be particularly diligent about the integrity of the cable connections.
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I'm more concerned he will drive back oop north..

Which motor is it ?
 
It's badged Fortec Star but is clearly a Motek clone.

I think the cable core receptacle on the Rx to Motor socket was a wee bit too wide so the cable core needed to be flexed sideways to enable good contact. Long time since I used it, so memory is hazy. Maybe bung a bit of foil or summat in there to pad the gap?
 
I made a new cable using higher gauge coaxial and that didn't make much difference, I could get the motor to click but not actually move. Abandoning motor for now until better weather in favour of perhaps getting an adjustable multi-lnb bracket (or 3d printing one as it doesn't seem to be very sophisticated).

In other news, I've managed to convince my wife that chopping down a dead tree and mounting the satellite dish behind a bush in a flower bed is ok. For that I'm thinking, fence post very deep concreted in, TK bracket on fence post with dish hanging off. (I think it'll be more sturdy than a 2" pole going directly into ground and concreted in.
 
This is a dish i had once mounted on a scaffold pole, i used a paving slab staked to the ground. the pole had a plate on the end with four holes which i fixed to the slab with rawl bolts/studs so i could get the pole plumb. It needed the guy ropes to stop the pole swaying in high winds this setup was trouble free, when i upgraded to a 3 inch pole i concreted 4 studs into the ground for fixing.
 

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I am considering mounting a TK Bracket to a dead but not rotten tree I have and going that route, having a think ;)

EDIT: Just bought a fence post and 750mm spike (I cannot concrete it in right now as I'll be moving it potentially from time to time). I plan on having it almost ground level, so hopefully not much movement possible.
 
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well, with a TK Bracket, (should have taken @Lazarus 's) a fence post in a spike, a pole rammed about 1 meter into the earth... and a dead tree chopped down it seems pretty stable. if it holds up well for the next few days of wind and rain I'm gonna put the Triax 110 dish on there permanently (which is quite heavy).sat.jpg
 
Nice work! Yes, sadly I've now binned those spare brackets so could't even fax them to you :unsure
 
An update on what I’ve been using all this kit for… I’ve just about finished a prototype of a kingofsat/lyngsat style website. With an emphasis on blind scanning and keeping me occupied. Currently it only supports Astra1 and Hotbird due to the time it takes to scan and is very very basic. But I should have something with a simple UI ready to share soon!
 
I think we'll all look forward to that :Y
 
As mentioned, its extremely basic right now, just Astra 1, no others, no search, no expanded details and a basic design, but the data feeds are flowing in... I have an API exposed too for those who are keen to explore. No promises on uptime as of yet as I'll be yo-yoing it as I add new features.

 
I've now added support for multi-sat and language audio streams etc. Search is probably the next thing I'm gonna tackle. (I'm doing this all in a tech stack I've never used before btw as a bit of fun).

if I motorise the dish, I could probably scan the whole horizon east, but due to dish positioning I'm not convinced I'd get far west.
 
D4ftpunk said:
I've now added support for multi-sat and language audio streams etc. Search is probably the next thing I'm gonna tackle. (I'm doing this all in a tech stack I've never used before btw as a bit of fun).

if I motorise the dish, I could probably scan the whole horizon east, but due to dish positioning I'm not convinced I'd get far west.
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Had an hour here and there over the last few weekends. I now have auto scanning and publishing working for every meaningful sat from around 30W to 52E; Although I disabled many that yielded very little results.

Next I'll be adding search and looking into snapshot/screenshotting.
 
Nice. Looking forward to the next update
 
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