chookey's Motorised Install

Still continuing this mission of making myself look like a tw*t.
The switch was a red herring. There was actually an intermittent connection on the centre core of the cable from the receiver into the switch. It stopped working when my mate left and I tried scanning other sats to no avail and then found I'd lost everything..
Took a while to find the problem and I have now rescanned and stored 19.2, 13 and 0.8. Have tried without success to get anything on 16.

Seems to be a different thing every time I move the dish. Hopefully I will be able to get up to it today and replace the cable.
 
chookey said:
Still continuing this mission of making myself look like a tw*t.
The switch was a red herring. There was actually an intermittent connection on the centre core of the cable from the receiver into the switch. It stopped working when my mate left and I tried scanning other sats to no avail and then found I'd lost everything..
Took a while to find the problem and I have now rescanned and stored 19.2, 13 and 0.8. Have tried without success to get anything on 16.

Seems to be a different thing every time I move the dish. Hopefully I will be able to get up to it today and replace the cable.
Click to expand...
Given what you have already found out replacing the coax with some decent WT100 seems the way to go.
 
Would also be worth removing the switch until everything is working correctly on the motor (just to simplify things).

Once you know the motor is doing what it should do correctly, then you can re-introduce the switch and if anything goes wrong then, you know it's not the motor that is the issue.
 
I'm still waiting for the Candid Camera guy to jump out with his microphone. :oops:

The dish was assembled by the 1st "installer" so she put the bracket on the wrong way. The 2nd "installer" obviously never checked it but then again not having a clue about declination he wouldn't bother his arse.
The 2nd "installer" needs to change his spirit level. I checked all round the pole and it's the same every way.

Quite windy and occasional rain here today so I will devise a way of saving the direction of the dish, take it down and reset it properly hopefully tomorrow. I'll perhaps change the cable today. Have to check whether the cable I bought from the satellite site is up to scratch.

IMG_20230827_131104.jpgIMG_20230827_130843.jpg
 
chookey said:
I'm still waiting for the Candid Camera guy to jump out with his microphone. :oops:

The dish was assembled by the 1st "installer" so she put the bracket on the wrong way. The 2nd "installer" obviously never checked it but then again not having a clue about declination he wouldn't bother his arse.
The 2nd "installer" needs to change his spirit level. I checked all round the pole and it's the same every way.

Quite windy and occasional rain here today so I will devise a way of saving the direction of the dish, take it down and reset it properly hopefully tomorrow. I'll perhaps change the cable today. Have to check whether the cable I bought from the satellite site is up to scratch.

View attachment 159552View attachment 159553
Click to expand...
That is shocking.

Id say you have a claim to request your money back.

Id certainly be giving them both bad results with your pictures if possible.

Cable im sure wos sell rg59 it will be a decent improvement over shotgun cable.
 
There should be rubber covers over the f connector going into the lnb and not only that proper crimped f connectors, I've never liked those screw on types too much play in the ends.
As I said at the beginning, if it's not absolutely plumb level it's pointless the dish will never in a million years get the arc.

The actual bracket mines attached to was out of plumb so I jiggled it around and used washers and laminate flooring wedges to get it perfect, it's held up with big coach bolts.

If someone put yours up and left it 10-15mm out of plumb he needs get his eyes tested. If he built a house like that it would end up like that crooked house that recently got burned down that's shocking.
If you suspect the cables knackered replace it, don't fight it even it it isn't then you've eliminated one potential issue.
When I first did mine I ripped what little I had left out doing it so I know it's not easy and as you've found out some installers struggle to, they prefer a straight forward 28.2e job
 
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I have replaced the cable and crimped the ends. Didn't have the rubber boots anymore so used some heat shrink sleeving, unheated and taped it to keep it's position.
The brackets were miles out of square due to the wall being uneven. This resulted in the mast being at the extreme left of the slot on the top one and the extreme right on the bottom bracket. This meant that no further adjustment was possible to align the mast.

I used some steel packers to square the brackets up and centralise the mast in the adjuster slots but am not happy with it. Coupled with the fact that he used rawl plugs and 40mm coach screws where I would prefer to use 65mm bolts. He never even drilled the holes deep enough so the plugs weren't fully inserted.

I am going out shortly to redo the brackets. This means removing the motor so I'm starting from scratch. Won't get the dish back up today as it's quite windy here again. Thank God I still have a Sky dish, oh, and iptv. The month's trial the 1st "installer" gave me is still going strong after nearly 2 months.
 
chookey said:
This is a gift that keeps on giving. Just been up to remove the dish from the motor pole and seen the motor feed moving when I snipped a cable tie.


View attachment 159556
Click to expand...
Well mate, when you have finished the job will be done right.

Fair play for tackling it when the pros lol have left it in a state.
 
Ferret said:
Well mate, when you have finished the job will be done right.

Fair play for tackling it when the pros lol have left it in a state.
Click to expand...
Rain has stopped play for a while. It's all coming down so gives me time to rethink my strategy. May even resite it to a location where I can work on it more easily. As it stands if the dish were to move greater than around 30°E it would collide with the wall. I'm aware I can set up physical or software limits but it's poor planning in the 1st instance to be honest. If I were to get a longer mast to raise it clear of the wall I would really struggle to fit the dish and make necessary tweaks.
I could spend yet more dosh and buy 18" T&K's. Obviously I would sacrifice a little strength then.

There have been so many dishes attached to this wall over the years that it now resembles the bullet ridden ones in Bakhmut.
 
Just had a call from the satellite guy. It wasn't his fault, he insists the box is at fault because it's "hooky". He says that the mast was perfectly plumb!!
He had an excuse for everything so I called him out as bullshit. He told me not to swear at him 😂

The brackets couldn't go flat to the wall because his wall plugs couldn't go deep enough and stuck out the wall by 3/8". I told him I have removed everything to do it myself properly. He then moaned that I wasn't giving him the opportunity to put it right. I told him that I didn't believe him capable of putting it right.

The holes he did are marked with a blue pen mark. No chance of the brackets going on square. The wall itself is near enough plumb.

IMG_20230829_123915.jpgIMG_20230829_123920.jpg
 
I hope you have sent him every little bit of evidence you have posted on this thread to prove his incompetence.

If not and you can be bothered threaten him with small claims court.

Whatever you payed it wont of been cheap id want it back.
 
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