H180, 6foot dish, C&Ku Analog, DVB & DCII

[ayelvington]

It'll be worth it. 40 bux ain't too bad.
I had to buy a 2nd bag of fast set concrete and it alone was $9!

You might want to search for an old C band analog receiver too.
makes for lining things up a little easier - digital "snaps in" whereas analog gets a fuzzy picture if its off a bit. THeres still some stuff on analog that makes it worthwhile the $50 or less for a box.

I bought two head-in analog receivers from eBay and really like them. Blonder-Tongue makes great stuff. Sometimes you can get as many as three for $20 (+ shipping). You can turn off the LNB power and connect one to the IF output of your digital receiver.

[pmb1010]

We got our first significant snowfall yesterday. Probably close to a foot of snow.

As you all probably know, the 6 foot dish on it's own is a compromise in that although it gathers enough C band signal to give some viewing cabability, it's right at the edge of minimum signal levels.

I'm finding that the snow has significant consequences, at least on my install. I lost a lot of the picture due to snow collecting the face of the dish.

This resulted in a couple things.

- I did not confirm this, but the snow on the face might cause the dish properties to become so out of wack that the signal getting to the LNBF is degraded.

because of:

- The snow pulls the dish down enough to be off signal. This was a combination of 2 things, my pole is not very rigid, as I'm still using the EMT tubing on temporary install spot. So the weight of the now is flexing the pole a bit.

- the slop in the motor brackets, clamps, and gears & stuff. It seemed as though I could pick up the dish and move it significantly. I think I had the bolts tight, but we had some pretty good winds a couple weeks ago and it might have had some cause and effect.

I did end up scraping the snow (about 3" from around the dish) with a small piece of wood and yanked up to kind of lift it back up so I was back on track. Once done, the C and Ku signals were back.

Notes for next spring:
- get the Sched 40 into final spot for dish
- resolve the cause of the flexing and get this thing nailed down
- try as someone suggested, putting Rainx on the dish to help slow slide off it. Shovelling the dish every few hours is not fun.

[wejones]

We got our first significant snowfall yesterday. Probably close to a foot of snow.

As you all probably know, the 6 foot dish on it's own is a compromise in that although it gathers enough C band signal to give some viewing cabability, it's right at the edge of minimum signal levels.

I'm finding that the snow has significant consequences, at least on my install. I lost a lot of the picture due to snow collecting the face of the dish.

This resulted in a couple things.

- I did not confirm this, but the snow on the face might cause the dish properties to become so out of wack that the signal getting to the LNBF is degraded.

because of:

- The snow pulls the dish down enough to be off signal. This was a combination of 2 things, my pole is not very rigid, as I'm still using the EMT tubing on temporary install spot. So the weight of the now is flexing the pole a bit.

- the slop in the motor brackets, clamps, and gears & stuff. It seemed as though I could pick up the dish and move it significantly. I think I had the bolts tight, but we had some pretty good winds a couple weeks ago and it might have had some cause and effect.

I did end up scraping the snow (about 3" from around the dish) with a small piece of wood and yanked up to kind of lift it back up so I was back on track. Once done, the C and Ku signals were back.

Notes for next spring:
- get the Sched 40 into final spot for dish
- resolve the cause of the flexing and get this thing nailed down
- try as someone suggested, putting Rainx on the dish to help slow slide off it. Shovelling the dish every few hours is not fun.

Yeah, what you describe is typical. You can still see signals through a bit of snow, but usually the weight of the snow destroys your alignment before you lose signal due to the snow blocking the signal. Most people in the north tend to park their dish over to one horizon when snow is coming, so that the snow won't collect as deep. If it's a cold dry snow, you don't need any special coating on the dish, just bang it with your hand or a broom, and it all slides off, again assuming that you're aimed low to the west or east. If it's a wet snow though, nothing helps, at least with a mesh dish, as it kind of melts into the holes and re-freezes. At this point you have to bang it off from behind, which ends up denting the mesh. I have softball sized dents in my mesh due to banging off ice. But with a solid dish, I guess it's possible that a coating might help keep it from sticking, I don't know.
Yesterday's snow was pretty dry though. I just hit the dish by hand, and all the snow slid off.
Anyway, I don't think you'll ever get the flex out of the dish. I've never seen a dish that didn't have some flex in it. I thought most of my flex was in the mount itself, rather than the pole, but I'm sure the pole flexes too.

[pmb1010]

The dish is very light metal material.
If I was to bang it about too much, I think it's fold onto itself!

The problem with yesterdays snow (although it was light) it left a crust layer on the dish, and although tapping it did drop 4" on the top/light stuff, it left 1 inch of crusty junk.

and I never ever had to fool around with my offset 4 footer over the past few winters. The plusses of having the face angle much steeper I guess

and I did try the "point it at C1" trick, at least for a bit.
It was just snowing so much, and I wanted to watch stuff near 99 degress that it acted like a scoop out there

The neighbor behind me and 3 doors down has a black mesh dish, and it's mounted on a pole good 20 feet up minimum. Wonder what they do...
I've never seen the occupants to ask.

[wejones]

and I did try the "point it at C1" trick, at least for a bit.
It was just snowing so much, and I wanted to watch stuff near 99 degress that it acted like a scoop out there

Yeah, I wanted to watch something on 93 that started at 1:00, but in the morning it was really coming down. I kept it on G5 until about noon, then lucked out because the snow let up for 3 hours, then it started snowing again right after I was done.

The neighbor behind me and 3 doors down has a black mesh dish, and it's mounted on a pole good 20 feet up minimum. Wonder what they do...
I've never seen the occupants to ask.

There's a house I drive by a lot about 10 miles from here that has a dish up 20 feet or so. I really don't know how they got it up there or how they keep it in alignment. There would be enough flex in that pole that if you climbed up the pole to align it, your weight would pull it out of alignment while you're up there so once you came down it would be different. You'd almost have to back a bucket truck up next to it. Either that, or they have an az/el mount or a declination motor, so it doesn't have to be in good alignment.

[ayelvington]

Many thanks for following up with your experience with the recent snow. I'm in NW Pennsylvania and we got a lot here too. The current crew of offset dishes shed snow well, so no problem there. I'll be sure to use a stout ground post and possibly put a back haul on it. I have an offset dish in VA that tends to catch wet snow and I put Kings on it; the spray works well enough, but i wonder if Rain-X would work as well???

Again, many thanks,

Al

[rainman]

On the dry powder snow I use the actuator to bump the dish east and west this usaly shakes it off on the wet stuff I have to use a broom to sweep it off.Luckly we haven't had a lot of snow here lately.

[wejones]

On the dry powder snow I use the actuator to bump the dish east and west this usaly shakes it off on the wet stuff I have to use a broom to sweep it off.Luckly we haven't had a lot of snow here lately.

It's been a great year for snow up here in Maine this year (great, if you have 2 snowmobiles, skiis and snowshoes that have been sitting mostly idle for a couple poor snow years). It's knee deep already, and it's all been nice dry snow that falls off the dish easily. Sometimes it will fall off when I move the dish, but usually not. I think the H-H isn't quite as violent in it's movement as an actuator. However sometimes I can kind of get it rocking by doing a bump,bump, bump with the motor, but you have to be lucky to match the natural vibration freq of the dish. I usually have to go out and knock it off. But it's part of my routine. I first blow the snow off my driveway, then I get out my snowmobile to make paths for my 3 dogs (otherwise the only place they can do their thing is in the driveway), and one of those paths goes right by the dish, so I just drive by the dish and give it a knock. But if it's wet snow, I have to go get a long extension broom to try to pull it off. The really bad stuff is when you get a couple inches of snow, that is followed by freezing rain. That stuff is nasty to get off. Only thing you can do is scrape the top snow off, and wait for the sun to sublime the crust. A few years ago we had about 6 snows that were followed by freezing rain, so the snow was a terrible layered stuff that you couldn't even walk through, because each layer of ice would cut into your knees as you tried to walk. Only way to get around was to use snowshoes. This is a great winter so far, all nice dry snow that you can walk in, if you're not a dog.
BTW, the paths I make for my dogs are also used by deer, coyotes and hare, which is neat. Kind of neat to go out and make a trail with the snowmobile in the woods, then drive over it the next day only to find that all sorts of animals have been using the snowmobile trail to get through the snow.
Anyway, I like the snow. Although it complicates TVRO stuff a bit.

[Vitruvius]

Has anyone put heat tracers on their dish, like the heating elements used to wrap plumbing pipes that are exposed to the cold? I bet that would work, but you would want to put a switch on the power so they aren't heating your dish all the time. This is obviously for the softies out there who don't want to get snow on their feet.

The're putting that stuff everywhere - under driveway and sidewalk slabs, and under bathroom tile floors...

Oh the wind was amazing this past Sunday. So much whistling and racket, that I thought it was going to blow my house off its foundation. I think it spun my 31" inch dish out of alignment. I haven't checked yet but I did notice it pointing to an UFO when I left in the morning.

[Vitruvius]

If you do a search on the internet, there are manufacturers of heating elements for satellite dishes. I've seen them for the small dishes up to 38" dishes... Didn't find any for big dishes yet...