Thursday, July 9, 2009

Starchoice Dish

You may remember the Starchoice dish that got blown over and broken two years ago in San Miguel de Alende. It was a bit of a comedy trying to get it fixed in Mexico but we finally succeeded and it got us through the rest of that trip. When we got home we ordered the larger dish which we have been using in the motorhome ever since. The larger dish is much easier to aim.

The old repaired dish was taking up space in my workshop so I decided to mount it to the side of the workshop to use in the motorhome when it is parked at home. This was my project today. I screwed the mount to the end of the building and climbed up on the roof where, with the help of my neighbour, I mounted the dish and found the signal. I then ran some cable down, ending near the electrical box where we hook the motorhome up.

This was not anything that had to be done but it will be convenient once in a while and it got the old dish out of my somewhat cramped 10 X 12 workshop. Now I just have to clean out a ton of other junk so Rae will be able to use the shop to do some work on her motorhome while she is staying here this winter. The way it is now you can hardly find the workbench. This is going to become a major project but something that has to be done.

6 comments:

  1. Don't clean up too much since I'll just end up reorganizing it. ;)

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  2. My hat will be off to you if you can make order out of that chaos! My main object is to get all the power tools in one place so you have a place to start.

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  3. I have three dishes (just to one up you amigo) One for each casa in Mexico and one for the road. Just have to hail the modem between casas - avoiding any setup = plug 'n go is the way to go ;-)

    Besides my next door neighbor was a Hughes Internet installer and he plied me with dishes (service for six)

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  4. How did your new ground dish mount work out in practice? I am just about to build one...

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  5. My homemade mount worked out pretty good. It is virtually wind proof so there is no more fear of a blow-over. One of my joints came apart after a while so make sure you use lots of "glue" on all the joints and maybe think of adding a screw or two. It also developed a bit of a sag in the middle because of the short legs I used and the weight of the dish. I am not sure what the solution for this would be. I solved it by finding a rock or stick of the correct size to place under the center. Here is a link to a photo of the mount I made:

    http://croftsmexico.blogspot.com/2008/10/windproof-satelite-dish-mount.html

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