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Old 6-Oct-2013, 11:46 PM   #74
Pete Higgins
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Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: California, 58 miles @112 degrees from Mt. Wilson
Posts: 83
Satellite dish mount on tower leg

tripelo,

I finally modified the satellite dish mount that I removed from one of my rentals and attached it to the west facing leg of my aluminum tower. Attached my one remaining RCA 5-wire rotor and with a short piece of schedule 80 PVC, my HDB8X 8-Bay Bow Tie. I angled it so that I can rotate the antenna between 169 deg. (the San Diego UHF stations) and 292 deg. (the LA UHF stations). Moving it ~15 feet north and being able to rotate it for maximum SNR gave me a 2-3 dB improvement in signal strength even though its physically 6-10 feet closer to the ground.



The HDB8X still won’t get channel 43 (CBS 2.1) but has channel 36 (NBC 4.1 & .2) as well as channel 31 (CW 5.1, .2 & .3) booming in (SNR’s ~ 28.5-.7). My 91XG on the tower is getting channel 43 with an SNR of 19.9 – 20 .5 but has channel 36 dropping in & out and jumping between 0 and 17.1 with lots of correctable errors. It does a little better with channel 31, holding a steady 21.1 with no errors. TV Fool lists channel 31 @ 2-Edge -103.8, channel 36 @ 1-Edge -107.7 and channel 43 @ 2-Edge -112.9.

The LNA-200 is wedged in place, mid-way between the horizontal cross braces, by the right panel's reflector end cap. Seems much more secure than using the supplied black tie-wrap! Mounted this way I'm not seeing the overload I saw when it was mounted on the mast, below the antenna.
Attached Images
File Type: jpg HDB8X on Tower 3.JPG (49.7 KB, 6245 views)

Last edited by Pete Higgins; 7-Oct-2013 at 2:26 AM. Reason: Add LNA-200 info.
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