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Old 07-17-2010, 11:35 AM   #1
pbahlin
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Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Sioux Falls
Posts: 617
M.O.C. #9380
suction cup lifters

A while back I read about a MOCer who mounted his Sat Dish using suction cup lifters from Harbor Freight. Don't remember who made the post but I thought I would relate a funny story about these things and give a thank you for the idea.

We've been getting ready to full time. DW is fulfilling a work commitment to her company and I'm retrofitting, culling, researching, and sneaking afternoon naps. One of the things that is going on is that we are frequently moving our rig to get goodies and service. We are long time Direct TV customers from our sticks and bricks and I've been attempting (with little success) to get satellite service at our site.


I've probably invested something like 30 hours or so messing around with my dish. I should say up front that we picked our current site for good mid afternoon shade in New England. Who knew that good afternoon shade in New England comes from trees that are positioned specifically to kill satellite signals? These are trees that were planted by cable companies in the late 90s to ensure business in the early 2000s. Around here it's not uncommon to see Comcast landscaping trucks going down the road loaded up with seedlings and massive amounts of liquid fertilizer for their genetically engineered 'Satellite Pines'.

Anyway, I got lucky a week ago and stumbled on the exact placement and tweaks for my dish and had my first success with satellite. I found some enormous camping nails, about a yard long, and pounded them into the ground on my tripod legs. Then I bungeed the tripod to my dog's ground anchor thingy. Then I moved the rig to get new tires, leaving everything (especially my immovable dish) where it was.

When I came back to my site, the DW said lets move it forward a little. What the heck, I said. No problem. Well this meant the Monty was now between my dish and my satellites. I didn't know this of course so I set about hooking everything back up, confident that I could go inside, crack a cold one and fire up the evening news. Not!

My signal strength was zero on every transponder and when I went outside I realized my dish was pointing precisely at my hi tech, turn on a dime, Monty nose cone. I moved the dish right away but lost my little notch through the satellite pines and after much cursing, sweat, and tears, went to bed with no TV.

The next day I bought suction cups, rigged them to provide me with mount anywhere capability and then sat the dish on top of the mount, aimed it at the notch in the trees and went inside for a (another) beer. I wasn't expecting much because I did no high tech pointing, no compass pointing, no satelliete finder, no signal strength monitor. Nothing, just pointed the dish at the gap in the trees!

To my surprise, every transponder was above 96%. Go figure. The one time I do absolutely no sophisticated aiming, I get the best signals ever.

I'm attributing it to the suction cups and whoever came up with the idea, I owe you one. Reply with your email and we'll hook up for some stories.

I was seriously contemplating shelling out two grand for the Winegard Traveler but for two beers and sixteen bucks I'm on the air. If you're in the market for the Winegard system, get a six pack and some suction cups first. You might get lucky, like I did, and save enough dough to buy yourself some toys.
 
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Old 07-17-2010, 02:03 PM   #2
hookman
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I am 100% sure but I think it is JJackFlash. Get in touch with him. If it is not him he may know who.
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Old 07-17-2010, 02:47 PM   #3
HamRad
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Yes. Jack has that kind of setup. I watched him set it up on our last trip. It works great. Drop him a line I'm sure he'll be glad to give you all the details.
HamRad
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Old 07-18-2010, 03:39 AM   #4
pbahlin
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I may have been long winded in my post but the point wasn't to find out how to do the suction cups. The point is that I did it and it finally let me get my dish in the correct location with nothing more than a wild guess as my alignment procedure.

By the way, in case anyone is wondering how this worked for me. I used two of the suckers where the design is to have cups on either end of a handle. Then I u-bolted the handles at right angles to a 6 foot piece of 1 1/4 iron pipe and placed my antenna mount on the end of the pipe. This lets me slide my suckers up and down the pipe to avoid pulling a vacuum on my decals or having the disc end up on the edge of a decal (making a leak).

Went through a T-Storm last night with no ill effects and this morning I can yank on the pipe and shake my rig. These things really hold tight. I'm going to test everyday to see how long I can go without having them fall off. I've got four discs pulling and one could easily hold this thing up so my hope is that losing one vacuum will not be catastrophic.

Has anybody that's done this ever had a disaster?
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Old 07-18-2010, 05:10 PM   #5
jjackflash
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Paul, I not sure if the person you speak of ,is me but this is the way I've mounted my dish for the last three years.It's always worked for me and I've never had it drop off.
The way I align the dish is first I look for someone that has already setup and than point my dish in that direction and just move it around,usually with in 5 minutes I have the signal.By the way,the secret to keeping those suction cups stuck to the surface is Pam!Just spray a lttle on each cup.
Jack




Carriage Returns inserted after each picture to eliminate scrolling - CRAFT-Guy
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Old 07-18-2010, 11:34 PM   #6
pbahlin
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Jack:

It must be you that thought of this. Great idea! Since I've put mine up I've had several people come over to me for snooping. They all want to do it. With some fancy packaging and paint you could market this for some big bucks to Camping World. Put it all together in a kit with some instructions and stand back!

I'll have to try the Pam. I was thinking about a little Vaseline but Pam is probably neater.

By the way, love the dog 'windows'. Do they ever pop it open and walk on out?
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Old 07-19-2010, 06:40 AM   #7
dreamers2010
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How do you get them off to move on to another location?

Judy
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Old 07-19-2010, 07:04 AM   #8
jjackflash
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Paul, it's a good conversation item!
The dogs are looking out the screen door,you notice on the screen door the sliding bolt above their heads.
Judy, on each cup there's a small lever you release and they just pop off.You can get those cups for 5.99 at Harbor Freight.
Jack
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