Advice Needed Supporting Mast

[A Lancashire Lad]

Hi all,
I'm in the process of installing a motorised 90cm dish I need a bit of advice The mast is 2mt 2" steel scaffolding pole and I two 18" Blake K brackets mounted to the wall the brackets are mounted 65cm apart and the length of the mast above the highest bracket is 110cm. Ive noticed that when I hit the mast with my hand the top of the mast vibrates. From that I assume I need additional mast bracing. a company called purplesat have pictures which show a mast that has extra mast bracing but I cant find anybody that sells them can anybody help?

I found a 2" clamp on ebay which I hope will do the job of fixing the braces to mast

 

[satelliteman]

Image is a tad too small to see. 76mm masting can be better for larger rigs.

 

[Channel Hopper]

The two T/K brackets are far too close together on the wall but a potential way of eliminating the wobble would be to install a really long piece of scaffold, with the lower end buried in the ground.

 

[A Lancashire Lad]

Image is a tad too small to see. 76mm masting can be better for larger rigs.

Thanks for replying Satman, the picture is from purplesats website did email them for suitability and pricing but had no reply
I've added my installation so far below

 

[A Lancashire Lad]

The two T/K brackets are far too close together on the wall but a potential way of eliminating the wobble would be to install a really long piece of scaffold, with the lower end buried in the ground.

Thanks for replying, cant feel any movement lower down the pole It might that I'm just be paranoid in that when the dish is mounted the wind will move it enough to loose picture
have upload a picture of my installation so far above

 

[John]

Just for info, can you tell us a bit more....
Which direction is the back wall facing.
What 90cm dish type and what motor had you got in mind.
Have you got line of sight to the ones (sats) your interested in.
What satellites are you interested in receiving.
Does the motor and dish actually need to go to the top of the mast ? ... ie: to clear next doors buildings ?.
If it does not, is there enough pole length to get the bottom of it onto or into ground for extra stability as @Channel Hopper suggested .

A bit there to keep you going for a bit .
And .... more pictures if you can, we like looking at pictures on here. ;)

 

[A Lancashire Lad]

Just for info, can you tell us a bit more....
Which direction is the back wall facing.
What 90cm dish type and what motor had you got in mind.
Have you got line of sight to the ones (sats) your interested in.
What satellites are you interested in receiving.
Does the motor and dish actually need to go to the top of the mast ? ... ie: to clear next doors buildings ?.
If it does not, is there enough pole length to get the bottom of it onto or into ground for extra stability as @Channel Hopper suggested .

A bit there to keep you going for a bit .
And .... more pictures if you can, we like looking at pictures on here. ;)

Hi John, to answer your questions
Wall is pretty close to true south line of sight is pretty good east and west
Already have the equipment
Vu+ Duo2, Vu+ Solo2 and a Cloud Ibox
Gibertini 90cm OP85SE. Black Ultra Single LNB. Dark Motor Supreme
60cm Generic Black Ultra Quattro Triax 5x12P Multiswitch fixed 28.2 E
I'll take what ever Sats I can get think I should be able to get most of the European Birds
I think the 90cm dish will have to go as high as possible for best signal as it's a bungalow so will be about 3mt off the ground. Garden is 4mts deep so limited floor space
the 60cm dish is to be fitted between the two K barckets.
It's a bit of a suck and see setup
Will upload more pictures as installation progresses

Used to have an Echostar SR-4500 back in the 80's with a 1.2mt dish on a polar mount on the side of the house above the gutter line but that was pain to get too when the wind pushed out of alignment

 

[Channel Hopper]

Hi John, to answer your questions
Wall is pretty close to true south line of sight is pretty good east and west

Not a ording to the original image. looks east facing. But at least you have a bungalow.

 

[rolfw]

Personally wouldn't worry about any extra bracing, unless you find it moves in the wind. If it is South facing, then you should be fine, as the strongest force will be directly into the bracket and that's the least flexible part.

 

[A Lancashire Lad]

Not a ording to the original image. looks east facing. But at least you have a bungalow.

That's not my picture I uploaded to show the bracing bars that I'm after
My pole is the larger picture below Channel Hopper's reply

 

[satelliteman]

Looks solid enough, I must say..
Good bracket spacing and top K three courses down.

 

[John]

Hi John, to answer your questions
Wall is pretty close to true south line of sight is pretty good east and west
Already have the equipment
Vu+ Duo2, Vu+ Solo2 and a Cloud Ibox
Gibertini 90cm OP85SE. Black Ultra Single LNB. Dark Motor Supreme
60cm Generic Black Ultra Quattro Triax 5x12P Multiswitch fixed 28.2 E
I'll take what ever Sats I can get think I should be able to get most of the European Birds
I think the 90cm dish will have to go as high as possible for best signal as it's a bungalow so will be about 3mt off the ground. Garden is 4mts deep so limited floor space
the 60cm dish is to be fitted between the two K barckets.
It's a bit of a suck and see setup
Will upload more pictures as installation progresses

Used to have an Echostar SR-4500 back in the 80's with a 1.2mt dish on a polar mount on the side of the house above the gutter line but that was pain to get too when the wind pushed out of alignment

... thanks 'owd Lad, does the view to the East, or West for that matter, get obstructed then by next doors conservatory, and so the reason why you think it should go higher

 

[jeallen01]

If, by 4m deep, you mean that is the space directly in front of the wall and dish, I doubt you would need to put the dish at the top of the mast - don't forget that the beams will be arriving from about 25 degrees above the horizontal. My own steerable dish is mounted about 2m above the ground and has a 2.2m high greenhouse within 1m of it and 2.2m high garage within 2m within 1m in front of it and to one side - and the dish can see above both of those and can see about 53E to 30+W (and the West side is limited by the houses about 20m away).

BTW: my original Supreme Dark Motor would not work with my Vu+ Solo2 - the supplier (VU+ UK) then told me that these motors often had trouble with some receivers such as my mine - especially Linux-based receivers (i.e. that might include your Duo2 as well as my Solo2) - and then exchanged it for a Superior Dark Motor which works fine with both the Solo2 and my TM5402 M3.

 

[archive10]

I think the 90cm dish will have to go as high as possible for best signal as it's a bungalow.

Apologise if stating the obvious, but reception does not improve with height.
You could mount a dish straight in the flower bed, and have exactly same reception as at the top of your flagpole.

(Well, ok, in most cases. Someone is bound to chime in with induced noise/heat from ground etc, but it's irrelevant with this sized dish and equipment).

Only thing that improves is - as @John says - the reach east to west.

So unless you *really* need to get that 80E signal, you can safely mount the dish further down, and get rid of the sway.

 

[A Lancashire Lad]

Looks solid enough, I must say..
Good bracket spacing and top K three courses down.

Thanks will keep you updated as I go hopefully I'll try a get the dish up tomorrow while the weathers fine
the top K is actually 5 courses down theirs a couple more courses of brick hidden by the shadow.

 

[Lazarus]

@st1

Quite.

The issue is not how high the property/dish is, but whether any potential obstructions can be cleared ..... and for most Satellites within the usable arc, the look angle (Not the dish face angle) is going to be good enough.

I have hedges and massive trees close to my bungalow's dish mounting point and have very few limitations.

At one point I used a dish on a patio mount to great effect, too.

 

[A Lancashire Lad]

... thanks 'owd Lad, does the view to the East, or West for that matter, get obstructed then by next doors conservatory, and so the reason why you think it should go higher

For two reasons like you say the conservatory is possible a factor but there are also large shubs to the East, West is clear Also want to put the 60cm fixed dish on the same pole between the K brackets again as high as possible without them interfering with each other

 

[A Lancashire Lad]

Apologise if stating the obvious, but reception does not improve with height.
You could mount a dish straight in the flower bed, and have exactly same reception as at the top of your flagpole.

(Well, ok, in most cases. Someone is bound to chime in with induced noise/heat from ground etc, but it's irrelevant with this sized dish and equipment).

Only thing that improves is - as @John says - the reach east to west.

So unless you *really* need to get that 80E signal, you can safely mount the dish further down, and get rid of the sway.

It would be nice to mount at ground level but would not be able to get much further than 28.2E due to fence and next door shrubs

 

[John]

For two reasons like you say the conservatory is possible a factor but there are also large shubs to the East, West is clear Also want to put the 60cm fixed dish on the same pole between the K brackets again as high as possible without them interfering with each other

Understood, have you got a simple cheap plastic protractor ?, get on your pc and find a satellite "Elevation Finder" program, and enter your location co-ordinates, add a 12" ruler onto your protractor and sight through it towards your chosen satellite and see if it's got a clean line of sight or best view possible.
A cheap and cheerful way to see if you can clear any of your surrounding obstacles ..... it'll put you roughly in the right ball park.
.

 

[A Lancashire Lad]

If, by 4m deep, you mean that is the space directly in front of the wall and dish, I doubt you would need to put the dish at the top of the mast - don't forget that the beams will be arriving from about 25 degrees above the horizontal. My own steerable dish is mounted about 2m above the ground and has a 2.2m high greenhouse within 1m of it and 2.2m high garage within 2m within 1m in front of it and to one side - and the dish can see above both of those and can see about 53E to 30+W (and the West side is limited by the houses about 20m away).

BTW: my original Supreme Dark Motor would not work with my Vu+ Solo2 - the supplier (VU+ UK) then told me that these motors often had trouble with some receivers such as my mine - especially Linux-based receivers (i.e. that might include your Duo2 as well as my Solo2) - and then exchanged it for a Superior Dark Motor which works fine with both the Solo2 and my TM5402 M3.

The garden wall and next doors shrubs would be a problem. You've got me worried know now with the motor how long ago did you buy the motor? hopefully it was just a firmware issue that has been resolved in either the VU+ box or the motor and that they have fixed it. As far as I know the only difference in the two motors is that the supreme has the LED display. Anyway I'll try a test fit at various heights and see how I go, if it does work ok lower down I may have to mount the 60cm dish on its own bracket.