The Halfass Craftsman Blog

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C-Band : Mounting A BUD (7.5′ Satellite Dish)

C-Band : Mounting A BUD (7.5′ Satellite Dish)

mixing concreteSo yesterday after noon we took the pole andpole in concrete the concrete and set the pole in the ground for the C-Band dish.

We mixed up the concrete, poured it in and leveled the pole.  Now we wait and give it 24 hours to set up.

I found a spot in the yard where I have a pretty good view of the arc.  My DP AR (Dish Pointer Augmented Reality) app on iOS shows as follows…

eastern arc western arc

I think that is not too bad given what I have to work with.  It will lead to longer cable runs though.  Getting to my PC / Computer room is going to be all of 100′-120′.  Can anyone message me and tell me what Im missing on C-band past 129° west and east of 30°?  Thats probably where all the good stuff is, right?  My luck.  If its any good on the east, that tree is history.

 This is it once it was up.  I think it looks really good, but thats just me.  Its a nice height where I can remove one bolt in the back and then lean it forward to work on the LNBF.  I can easily stand behind it to move it and get to the actuator.  Im pretty happy with this arrangement.  Except for the cable run of course but I am going to work on it near by at first with a TV outside before trench any cable.

I also had a 5 gallon bucket around and I put concrete and a 1 5/8″ pole for my GEOSat Pro 90 cm offset Ku dish with PLL lnb.  That way I can move it around the yard and shoot for birds and just play around hunting feeds or whatnot.

From what I understand all LNBF covers have wasps in them and I was ready for them when I was taking this off for the first time yesterday and of course the nests were they but no wasps.

Here’s the GEOSat Pro in it’s “Portable”
mount.  Its not quite as portable as I was expecting it to be.  That bucket is HEAVY!

C-Band : Harvesting a BUD (Big Ugly Dish)

C-Band : Harvesting a BUD (Big Ugly Dish)

c-band, odom, 7.5 feet diameterC-Band satellite dishes used to be the thing to have.  In the late 90’s, the advent of small DBS (pizza pan) dishes killed them off as they were large, heavy, some say ugly, and required a lot of maintenance. In these next couple posts I will be documenting my first try at setting up a C-band dish or BUD for feed hunting.

Quick back story, I was driving through the neighborhood and for many years I’d admired the satellite dish that a neighbor had in his front yard.  A couple weeks ago I was riding by and he happened to be outside and I stopped to ask him if I could have it.  Luckily I had stopped when I did because he said he was getting ready to cut it down and send it to the scrap yard!  Fast forward two week and we took it down.  It was relatively painless and the bolts came free quite easily with a little PB Blaster after being in the elements for the last 20 years.  It is heavy but not as heavy as you would think.  We listed it off and guided it down to the ground.  Below are a few photos of the dish as well as a time lapse video of the removal process.  Looking forward I will bring you detailed posts of the process from finding a site and pouring the concrete to finding out what the condition of the LNB, motor and general health of the dish, such as if its warped and if the focal distance is correct.  Currently the dish is as it was sold and installed in 1996.  For those of you who think there is not to receive on this you are mistaken.  Its not the typical type of TV you would expect from todays satellite and cable providers but there is programming out there and there is some of it that is free.  In this case though, I enjoy the hobby of tuning the dish and scanning the satellites to see what is being broadcast more than watching anything in particular.  Stay tuned…