What a find

OK, I hit hard shale at 6 inches, and it looks to be over 10 inches deep, (tested with the hammer drill) not good as you can't pin the base to shale, now I have to go rent an electric jack hammer, what a bummer....

I could try the big electric hammer drill with the biggest bit I have, it may take a while but I have time....Well almost, it's going to be around 100 degrees F here in a few days, I may have to delay this, or work at night, I have big work lights.
 
Terryl said:
OK, I hit hard shale at 6 inches, and it looks to be over 10 inches deep, (tested with the hammer drill) not good as you can't pin the base to shale, now I have to go rent an electric jack hammer, what a bummer....

I could try the big electric hammer drill with the biggest bit I have, it may take a while but I have time....Well almost, it's going to be around 100 degrees F here in a few days, I may have to delay this, or work at night, I have big work lights.
Click to expand...
Keep going buddy ..you'll get there ..
If you surface domewhere South East of Madagascar..and water starts rushing in ..
STOP ..
You've gone too far..
lol
 
OK some luck, I called a friend and he has a 50 pound jack hammer, all it will cost is a 6 pack of his favorite beer, if I bribe him with a case I may get him to run it.

If I move Mammoth Mountain I may get a good view of some of your birds over on your side of the pond, right now my furthest East I can go is 61W, then the Mountains are in the way.

But Mammoth may move on it's own some day if long valley decides to pop.
 
OK on other things till the jack hammer gets here.

I found the linear motor for that dish, it had not been used for 20 years, it's a "Von Weise", I tested it with a 24 volt battery charger and it works, now the question to the experts on these things, is should I take it apart and lube it up?

Or leave it alone, it's not rusted, and it runs smooth.
 
Terryl said:
OK on other things till the jack hammer gets here.

I found the linear motor for that dish, it had not been used for 20 years, it's a "Von Weise", I tested it with a 24 volt battery charger and it works, now the question to the experts on these things, is should I take it apart and lube it up?

Or leave it alone, it's not rusted, and it runs smooth.
Click to expand...
From what little I know of Von Weise I doubt it will need much if any attention ..
If there is a vent hole for rain water ..
Id suggest an oil bath overnight is all ..let the oil seep in ..
but avoid the electronics being immersed ..
 
I will give it a good looking over before I re-install it, I hope I can find all the hardware, some of the bolts may be missing, but I have some grade 8 stuff in the bins.
 
Digging the base is going slow, the ground is full of hard shale, but that makes it better, it won't tip in the wind, I can only dig about 5 inches at a time as it's about 97 degrees "F" out there, I dig a bit then shovel out the residue then go sit in the shade for a bit, I should have hired someone to do this.

I could maybe hire a kid and pay him $10 an hour, saves my back.

I may do that when I pore the concrete, I figure a 16"x16"x24" hole with a 24"x24" soil cap should do it, that's about twelve 60 pound bags.

Bad thing is it's going to get HOTTER, it's maybe going to get 100 to 104 by Tuesday, that's when I'm inside drinking a beer watching the hole do nothing.

Well lunch is gone, time to go dig for a bit.
 
Terryl said:
[...] I should have hired someone to do this.

I could maybe hire a kid and pay him $10 an hour, saves my back.
Click to expand...
Probably best $10 you ever spent. No value can be put on your back, buddy.
One afternoons work may affect your well-being for half a year.
I put up a temporary shed for our garden equipment (using 2-by-3's and a some corrugated plastic roofing) a year ago, I still live the the damage I did to my right arm holding that d*mn drill/screwdriver at awkward angles and pressing down hard.
 
I thought I wold post a photo of my "Poormans" crane, it's a 24 foor aluminum extension ladder with a 10 foot piece of uni-strut attached to it, the uni-strut will take the load, the ladder is there to raise it up.

It's counter braced with a 2x4 to the trailer hitch, the ball mount is turned sideways and I will use a come-a-long pulling on the rope to lift the dish, I made a special mount for the rope to attach to the dish, this will keep it from twisting out of shape.

This is how you do a one man lift of a 10 footer on a pole.
Poormans crane1A.webp
 
st1 said:
Probably best $10 you ever spent. No value can be put on your back, buddy.
One afternoons work may affect your well-being for half a year.
I put up a temporary shed for our garden equipment (using 2-by-3's and a some corrugated plastic roofing) a year ago, I still live the the damage I did to my right arm holding that d*mn drill/screwdriver at awkward angles and pressing down hard.
Click to expand...


I use the new star drive screws, (or torx head) they don't slip and you don't have to press so hard, they also self tap into the wood.

A trick for those that need to put a bunch of long screws into wood, put a bit of hand soap (an old bar of hand soap) on the screw, it goes in real nice and the soap will soak into the wood so the screw will not back out.

Big problem is finding a kid to do the job, not very many up here, school is just out, they may have scattered for the summer.
 
Well things went good except for the thunder storms that rolled in from the high Sierras, had to quit till they went through, darn shame as it dropped the temperature down to where it was good working, you don't want to stand out in an open field with lots of metal around (and an aluminum ladder in the back of a truck sticking up in the air) during thunder and lightning.

Cool enough this morning to maybe finish up the digging of the base, then a small trench for the 1 1/2" conduit. (38mm for you over there)

Coffee break over time for digging.
 
Terryl said:
I use the new star drive screws, (or torx head) they don't slip and you don't have to press so hard, they also self tap into the wood.
Click to expand...
Yes, but I bought this box with 500 decking screws (green'ish rust-protected) with pozi-drive heads, so I thought I'd better use those before buying new ones...
Have now bough INOX with torx-25 head, will not look back...
 
Yah the torx head screws are the way to go, my Brother-in-law has a cabinet shop, I showed then to him and he never went back to the square drives he used before, and you can get them with a shoulder head, they can't pull out or pull through soft wood.

And it's way too hot out there to work today, (it was 97 degrees F at 8:30 AM) it's time to sit back and enjoy a few beers and turn the AC up........Maybe time to look through the netflix guide and see whats up.
 
Terryl said:
Yah the torx head screws are the way to go, my Brother-in-law has a cabinet shop, I showed then to him and he never went back to the square drives he used before, and you can get them with a shoulder head, they can't pull out or pull through soft wood.

And it's way too hot out there to work today, (it was 97 degrees F at 8:30 AM) it's time to sit back and enjoy a few beers and turn the AC up........Maybe time to look through the netflix guide and see whats up.
Click to expand...


97 degrees is nothing, though I would normally turn down a beer much before elevenses.
 
It was 101 by 12, I was on my second beer, I only start the real drinking after 5PM and only on week ends.
 
Went over and cut the old mast down as a piece of 10 foot by 3" pipe is in short supply in my shed, some dingbat filled it with concrete, made for one heck of a removal for one man, had one heck of a time getting it in the truck, it was a bit heavy.

Tried cutting it with a saws-all, the concrete inside just dulled the metal cutting blade, so I used a cutoff wheel on my hand grinder, but had to water down the area around the pipe as the grass is tinder dry and I didn't want to play fireman.

I would have pulled it out in one chunk but a one meter sized cube of concrete is hard to lift by one guy, let alone trying to find some way of pulling it out out the ground, I will have to weld a 3 foot piece on the end, but that I have.

This is now a 3 beer job.
 
Well t's up, what a job for one man, good thing I had the poor-mans crane, it helped with putting the dish up on the mast.

Now for a little bit of tweaking tonight (it's cooler and I can see the TV set better) and then I'm out looking for a good Vbox positioner.
 
Don't forget some photos when you are done.
 
One thing that struck me the other day looking at your pics and location - how do you sat-enthusiasts in California handle the effect of earthquake?
I mean, not only do the dishes get rattled a bit (probably similar or worse than hit by really stormy weather), but sometimes the ground shifts slightly, or what?
When you've spent real effort to concrete in a 3" tube to be absolutely vertical, wouldn't it be dire straits if Mother Earth just decdided to tip everything 3 degrees?
Or maybe that doesn't happen where you are?
 
st1 said:
One thing that struck me the other day looking at your pics and location - how do you sat-enthusiasts in California handle the effect of earthquake?
I mean, not only do the dishes get rattled a bit (probably similar or worse than hit by really stormy weather), but sometimes the ground shifts slightly, or what?
When you've spent real effort to concrete in a 3" tube to be absolutely vertical, wouldn't it be dire straits if Mother Earth just decdided to tip everything 3 degrees?
Or maybe that doesn't happen where you are?
Click to expand...


There would have to be a big one to raise/lower/shift right or left the dishes base, there has not been an earthquake bigger then a 3 in this area in the past 4 million years.

I'm on a solid granite base, but it could happen if Mammoth Mountain or Long Valley decides to pop.

Now the Loma Prieta quake in "89" was different (I'm 160 miles East of that one, but was in the SF bay area when it hit) in some places the ground moved up 6 feet and over 10, we had to re-do a bunch of transmitter licenses after that one as the quake moved the location and over all height of the transmitting antennas on a lot of TV and FM stations.
 
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