Saturday, October 18, 2008

Windproof Satelite Dish Mount

As readers of my Blog will recall, we had a problem last year in Mexico when our StarChoice tripod blew over in the wind, breaking the arm off the dish. It took a long time to repair it and in the meantime we had to rely on the generosity of neighbours to share their dish with us. This was not a perfect solution as sometimes there was no other StarChoice dish within the range of my cable and other people are always coming and going.

I found plans for this ground level dish mount on the Internet and decided to build one. It was very simple to build using some inexpensive inch and a half PVC pipe and connectors. Because of the very low center of gravity, it should survive high winds while staying firmly on the ground. I took the opportunity to upgrade to the larger dish to help find and pull in the weaker StarChoice signal in Southern Mexico.

This will be a huge relief as most travelers in Mexico have either had the same problem themselves or know someone who did. StarChoice dishes are impossible to replace in Mexico so the only option is to try to repair them. The repair we did was actually very good and the dish still works well. This one will be better.
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4 comments:

  1. Nice looking job, Croft! You must be getting itchy to get on the road again. When do you leave?

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  2. Leaving on the 25th of October Rob. Thanks for dropping in!

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  3. Always a pleasure, my friend... 5 days, very nice! Got room in the 'basement' for me? :o)

    Hoping you and Norma have a great trip, and update us often. Some of us have to live vicariously through y'all!

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  4. Hi Croft!

    Neat support. Has it worked well for you? I would like to build a similar device - could you share your dimensions with me please? I also use a 75E dish, am from Halifax and presently in Mission TX. Have you tried inverting the dish as some Dish users have done?

    Thanks,
    Preston

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