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

[Vitruvius]

yes, I could reinforce the new motor the same way I tried to fix the broken one. I could epoxy some steel to the bottom.

One thing that also may help.... the way the motor is put together, it has three points - 2 bolts are the hinge point for aiming the dish, and the 3rd point is a long adjusting bolt held to a pivoting point at the bottom plate of the motor. Once the dish is pointed properly, I guess all the bolts should be tightened to their max, hinge and pivot. Ideally the 2 hinge bolts should use locking washers. This would still put a lot of force on the three points and the casting could still break.

All this, I am just thinking out loud. Once the dish is pointed properly and the bolts are anchored... I could put additional angle bracing up to the motor somehow and fasten them to the anchor bolts around the pole. That may take some of the forces away from the cast plate...

[Vitruvius]

Ok, I finally installed the 180cm dish on the new H180 motor (thank you Sadoun) and spent 10 hours on Sunday trying to get some signal... Very cool... I don't know how close to arc I am, but I did pick up 4 sats, 127, 123, 121 and 89. I think I found 87, but with 27 quality. For some strange reason I couldn't find other sats, like 97 or SatMex.
Most all the signals were about 35 and I got picture. There was one sat that I was buzzing with 65 quality...

It was pretty difficult to get on arc, and some of the problem is that there aren't dedicated C-band setups in the Mercury II. I had to create some, and not all the transponders are in the receiver, which I was using for aiming. I suspect I am not totally on arc since I couldn't get 43 or 72, or even 97...

Sure enough, at the end of the day we had one of our windy summer rain storms. I hope it didn't knock me too much out of alignement. I'll check this weekend. I am very nervous about this H180 motor and the occational wind running through my property. Perhaps I should have lowered the mounting pole.

This next weekend I'll try hooking up all the wires to the house and my two other Ku dishes. Fun with a Diseqc Switch... Thanks for all your help on this thread... Good info not found in any product manuals...

[ronpar]

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...

that whould work great but you can also tie a plastic tarp around the dish just like they put them on small 18'' dish's you will not loose your signal just like you don't loose it on the 18'' dish. ice will not freeze to the plastic tarp like it will metal sure you may have to go knock off the snow and ice but it will not mess up your signal as much if it were on the dish. and it will not be as hard to knock off the snow and ice. so you don't have to beat your dish to death to get the ice off

[Vitruvius]

Hmm.. very interesting... a tarp? Will signal still get through the tarp?

Say, PMB, I am sorry you didn't get your 180cm up and working. I finally got mine working with a replacement motor. I installed the motor and am crossing my fingers as to the wind loads. But now I am getting a whole slew of sats with the 180cm and H180. I can get 58 C, 72, 93, 95, 97, 101, 103, 113, 116, 121, 123, 125, 127, 129, 131, 135. There are a couple that don't come in too strong and I don't have all the Ku bands set up yet. I don't get all stations on the Ku Bands. For instance, on 97 I only get about 30 of the stations that are on Ku band... the important ones... FTV, MHZ do come in...
Perhaps I am not completely on the Ku arc. Any suggestions on how to adjust the install? I am afraid to mess with it actually..

[Vitruvius]

Ok, yes the H180 motor does seem to be a bit flimsy but this is what I am doing with it...
The bracket is bolted very tight to my 2 1/2" schedule 40 pipe.
At the end of the day, I park the dish facing into the wind at 125 or 135. This moves the dish over to the right side of the bracket. There are three points of connection to the motor from the bracket. The two heavier connections are the two bolts at the pivoting point of the bottom of the motor. I have these bolts very tight and at the 135 sat they are perpendicular to the dish and help with bracing it towards the wind. The strain is accross the bolts and not in the hinging direction. The adjusting arm, which is the third and last point of connection to the bottom of the motor is bolted to position and may not get as much strain on it if it were in alignment to where the wind is coming from.

fingers crossed... If anyone has any better ideas I'd love to hear them.

[pmb1010]

If anyone has any better ideas I'd love to hear them.

remove motor and put in trash.
Replace with real system.

Seriously good luck with it. It is a poor design.

I put my four footer back up on the spot where the 6 footer was. My 30" was experincing too much rain fade on G10R. For as many times as I've set this stuff up I cannot get the thing on the arc so at this point its adjusted and dialed into G10R sort of manually. I can move between G10R and White Springs. Good enough for now.
The mount is no longer plumb so I suspect that is the root cause.

I did not have any problems on Ku on the 6 footer when I had it setup. It worked really good in fact it was a shame it had to fall apart the way it did. Kinda soured me on the whole aspect of this FTA stuff.

[Vitruvius]

PMB, LOL... Yes I know, just the install of the 6 fter is a lot of work... I was so tired and the thing took a couple of days, and with the pole already in the ground...
It sounds like you should use your EMT pipe for the small dish..
Finding arc is always tough.. for me anyway. I can never get that small meter to find anything for me... I tune and it gives me nothing so I end up pulling my receiver and a 20" tv outdoors... That's a lot of work.

Can't you set up your 180cm as a fixed with the pedestal that came with it? I saw an interesting setup where they used a wooden pallet that they bolted it to, and then weighed it down with block. Not too attractive, but it is a BUD.

I kept with the same motor because Sadoun did not have a separate polar mount so I would have had to buy a whole new dish... I can't believe I found the arc... C-band with only Diseqc 1.2 is not as easy as USALS.

[pmb1010]

I cut the 6 footer's stand up to use as brackets to mount the motor (mistake as noted someplace on this thread).
So I'd have to fabricate something for fixed mode.

I dont know how well I'd use it fixed though. I watched a lot of showtime on C band when it was still on analog in the clear.

if I went thru all the trouble to work on it I'd do something where I can use an acutator. Its money I cant afford to spend right now. Need new roof on the house.

[ronpar]

it seems like sense they replaced sat 10r with sat gallaxy 18 the pic is not as strong on ku band. the pic keeps breaking up. and yes a tarp should work. and i have a 10' dish

[Vitruvius]

These pictures were in February 2008. The Fortec 180cm dish with HH180 motor crashed. The motor snapped in the wind. The motor may not have broken if the base plate was steel plate instead of cast aluminum.

See what happened next with the replacement HH180 motor.