I fixed the problem with the HOTBIRD LNB connection. Water entered inside the F connector and cut the inner cable conductor. The copper clad pin (i.e. the inner conductor of the cable) remained inside the female connector of the LNB and it was clean copper, not oxidation.
First position of the ladder - 2 bricks on soft earth - bad idea
Second ladder position - OK
The ladder ends over the platform - OK
My parents' neighbor & my brother are watching my performance...
EAST
Rotten plywood and exfoliated paint over rust. The platform was connected to the mast by 4 bolts, over 23 years ago... Ladder secured with a nylon braided rope. Thanks to Vasile Hucek.
The balcony down - front of my former bedroom (1967-2004)
The Atlantic style villa = energy efficient, Scandinavian architecture
ASTRA 19.2 degree East & HOTBIRD 13 degree East
100 years of evolution - Scandinavian vs. Romanian architecture (SM 28 & SM 26)
SM 26, thanks to the colonel I climb the mast...
Vasile Hucek & my brother in the front of the house of prayer
AB logo (Brasov Transylvania truck factory)
One of the 6 aluminium petals
Successful action on the platform 7 meter above earth... (3 X 11 steps standard ladder)
SOUTH. This was the azimuth of the YAGI antenna for Bulgarian TV on channel 11 (Botev relay).
A hard task for me in 1983. High signal loss thru the concrete & steel condominiums from Pantelimon & Iancului. We had a platform for a coal & wood elevator at the height of 15 meters above the ground level. In 1983 we put a mast, 8 meter and a YAGI antenna with amplifier.
23 meters above the ground but not above the 33 meter condominiums (11 floors).
Noisy picture due to weak signal and high gain of the amplifier. Low noise transistors needed.
Sun's azimuth same as ASTRA satellite's azimuth ! 13:38:51, summer hour !
13:39
13:42:44
13:42:51
13:42:55
Fixed mount
The history:
In September 1992 I installed a 3 meter dish for SCP. Another one in April 1993 for the same
CATV company. In spring 1993 I bought one for me. I prepared the foundation in August 1993
and I installed it in September 1993.
This was the project:
The projection of the dish on the house's facade.
Done by Flamaropol from SCP on early PCs, probably a 386...
The mast was from scrap metal, 4 X 2.4 meter high square sections from a former army short wave antenna mast. I assembled 2 and put them into 1.8 meter depth pit. When I dug the pit I was eneble to get out of it, so I asked my brother to bring me a ladder to get out. My friend Serban was working at the Carpati concrete station behind Romexpo. I ordered 1.5 cubic meters of concrete for bridges, I came with the guy with the concrete mixer truck and I poured the concrete thru the fence by an inclined plane improvised from an old linoleum protection for hardwood...
Next two segments and the dish were installed by a crane used only inside the 23 August factory. I worked with 2 guys from this factory to install 3 pcs. of 3 meter satellite dishes for KAPPA. One day when I was working they came with the crane in front of my house and put the last 2 sections of the mast on position. I didn't watch the show but my neighbors enjoyed it.
Finally, in a Friday late evening, helped by my neighbors, crossing thru the roses with thorns from the courtyard, we lifted the dish on its position.
I welded an improvised platform behind the dish in order to align it on ASTRA satellites system, 19.2 degree East. I used a professional spectrum analyzer for this, bought as pair with the 24 channels CableWorld (Hiradastechnika) CATV head-end for KAPPA in my one-day mission form September 30, 1993 @ Budapest. Later this fine field level meter for CATV and satellite was left in the car by Dorin my friend and Emil, the guy from US CATV. Somebody has stolen the PROMAX from the car.
The prime focus 3 meter dish was manufactured at Autocamioane Brasov (AB), a well known truck manufacturer. Made of 6 aluminium petals. The guys from the factory had a special device to install the petals and to get the perfect parabolic shape of the satellite dish. Of course I turned to their services.
In the focus of the dish was the feed-horn, an OMT which separated the 2 types of polarized channels, vertical and horizontal. The OMT was from Romania. The 2 LNBs were Gardiner, bought from a former Electromagnetica employee who started Canad systems, Mr. Minea.
The Gardiner LNBs were very low noise satellite converters. Later COMTEC 2000 also sold this state-of-the-art type of converters.
The huge dish was bought via Control Ploiesti, further collaborators at MCH CATV with COMTEC.
They also did the transport to the installing site.
After the dish was assembled from petals I exiled for some months the old DACIA 1300 of my father out of the garage in order to store the dish until reaching its position on the mast supplied by the retired colonel Gancevici from the house across the street. Originally intended for a barn style garage, 4 of 6 of the 2.4 meter sections with trusses became pole for my 3 meter dish.
I shared the signal of the dish with my neighbors but one year later I introduced SCP CATV in my house and I had about 15 subscribers on a radial distribution network, so the dish was only for my use.
About 5 years after I get some problems with the stability of the oscillator of one Gardiner LNB and I improvised another platform in the front of the dish using only 4 bolts on the mast, no welding.
I replaced the OMT and 2 Gardiner LNBs with a fine LNB bought in Beograd at Cable & satellite 1997. It was sold by UNICOM UNISAT. Having built-in conic feed-horn intended for offset dishes, these guys cut it to be adapted to prime-focus dishes like mine. It works well even after 23 years !
As a parenthesis I went with this company head to the RED STAR stadium in Beograd to watch a football match of the ARKAN's team up at the VIP glass protected section. And also as paranthesis, police (militia) chased the illegal vendors of cigarettes packs tied with elastic and hidden in bags or under clothes...
Another use of the front platform was to install a LNB in a secondary focus. This was for HOTBIRD 13 degree East. The LNB gets signal like from a 1.8 meter dish in this secondary focus of the 3 meter dish, so it is enough to avoid installing another bulky dish.
On February 1st, 2004 I left my birth place where I installed the dish and later I returned in the neighborhood at a distance of about 130 meter from the 3 meter dish.
At the new house I have a 1.8 meter dish from Ukraine, sold by ABACUS in the '90th. I bought it from my former COMTEC 2000 colleague Catalin who just uninstalled it from his house because cable was enough. It was very cheap, I used it first for the apartment I had in the center of Bucharest (2004-2008) and in May 2008 I moved it to my new house in the neighborhood where I was born.
The 3 meter dish was useless for my parents. Also the 1.8 meter BUT the hobby is hobby and asks for money...
I bought a HDMI extender by optical fiber and a HD satellite receiver,
My latest satellite receiver was from 1999, bought in Paris, Humax F1 VACI, digital but technical old. And an earlier type was PACE 900 with positioner and Eurocrypt decoder (3 separate), analogue.
And the earliest receiver was self made, copy of the Marian Ursulescu from FEPER model.
I asked my neighbor Liviu to make his drone fly with a thin thread from a 1000 meter curl-paper to my parents' house where the 3 meter dish is installed. Being on the tile roof I catch the drone by hand.
I asked Liviu to pull back the thread and the nylon rope that I tied to the thin thread. After this I asked him to tie the optic fiber with steel messenger and I pulled 150 meter of fiber.
I installed the satellite receiver by a DISEqC 4:1 switch in order to have both LNBs on the receiver. As parenthesis all 4 inputs were used in the past when I had at the same time the 1.2 m, the 1.8 m and the 3 m & 2 LNBs dishes working...
I asked the guys from DIPOL who sold me the HDMI fiber extender to weld the fiber and it worked until...
130 meter of fiber without a middle leaning point is a problem.
The middle was just above the tin roof of Mr. Becker who is almost all time abroad.
So I didn't ask his overflight permit and...it happened.
After 2 years the fiber was cut by a rivet used to fix a tin of the roof.
I did took some pictures and I saw the heavy fiber and the unlucky point where the fiber leaned after storms, wind and blizzards.
If Mr. Becker would have been home I would have asked him to put a fiber protection on the leaning point. I intend to do this once and to ask a welder to climb the roof and fix the cut fiber. Probably with access from the Becker's neighbor's roof, at the same level.
Again hobby is hobby and asks for money. And ideas are running wild and make me sleepless !
I became WISH-addicted. I found another HDMI extender using wi-fi.
Good price, half than the fiber one, China, of course.
I ordered it and I checked the pair first at home.
Then I tried the pair in free-air at 130 meter. It worked.
I put one unit behind my special insulated and against burglary glass containing a plastic foil.
The connection was lost, so outside antennas were needed.
I bought 2 BABUYAGA directional antennas with 7 meter cables.
And surprise...
I went with a HDMI unit which had female connector instead of standard male, pair with the antenna.
This is the secret of the cheap extender. It needed an expensive adapter or 6 mm of a silvered terminal of an electronic component. I didn't find this and I cut in angle an electrolytic capacitor terminal, I inserted it on the HDMI unit and the pair connector of the outside antenna fit.
First I tried to align the 2 directional antennas but it was a little hard.
I asked my brother to watch me by binoculars when aligning the broadcast antenna installed on my parents' house roof. Without a laser beam I asked him to watch the square mounting steel tin from the backside of the antenna, to see the round shape of the antenna's tube protection cap perfectly inscribed in the back square shape of the mounting plate.
At the reception site I tried to find the axis of the transmission antenna. It was hard, it worked, but finally I found that it is better to use the 2 antennas delivered with the receiving unit.
I installed the receiver outside, in a polycarbonate bottle, the unit being enough hot to survive during cold winters.
Now I use the remote control from my house to zap the channels from the 3 meter dish installed at a distance of 130 meter.
I reused some abandoned cables from old dishes installed over 20 years ago thru an old chimney behind the TV place in my parents' house, so no new cable was needed, except the 7 meter cable of the antenna for the wi-fi transmitter.
Now, another problem, probably a contact problem.
When I put the OMT with 2 LNBs I laid the cables without loops.
When I dismantled the OMT and put the LNB on the secondary focus I needed an extension loop.
There could be the weak point.
It worked tens of years but finally something happened.
I need a safety belt and a rope when climbing on the platform in the front of the dish.
In the past I had 67 Kg, however under 80, the latest time I climbed there.
Now I have almost 100 Kg and...safety is first.
And the 4 bolts of the platform are old but I think these are not very rusted.
An idea is to replace them before climbing.
20 years ago I was a good contortionist, now my belly is a problem.
There is a small place to pass from the mast to reach the front of the platform to check the HOTBIRD LNB from the secondary focus.
I have a long 3 sections ladder which must be installed at 75 degrees angle for safety, at a maximum height of 7 meter. I'll check if this reaches the platform level in order to climb the ladder an after to sit on the front platform of the antenna...
THINKING... SOLVED !
Another fact.
I installed first 3 meter diameter satellite dish for the CATV company SCP where I was project manager. On October 10, 1992 I checked how the dish focuses. The Sun was right behind ASTRA satellites at 12:35 and the light was focused as the satellite signal was focused.
This is the result:
As you see the shape is an ellipse and not a circle. Why ? Because the dish is heavy and it is a little deformed. I noticed this on all the 3 meter diameter dishes I installed.
I could test this on my dish only after 1 LNB had oscillator frequency drifting problems and I installed the front platform to change it. At the beginning it was only the back platform for aligning.
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