On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 08:32:02 +0000 (UTC), "J.G."
wrote:
I picked up a 10' length of 1" (ID) EMT conduit today (they don't have
any shorter lengths). I'll cut it about ten inches long, and push it in
about four inches and drill a crosswise hole in the mounting to bolt the
pipe into the J arm.
Ugly, but functional. If you don't want to weld the two pipes
together, think about using epoxy or other glue. However, I would
weld as the thermal expansion and contraction will eventually crack
the glue joint.
I might not even bolt it into the J arm if it feels sturdy.
You can't directly bolt it to the J mount. If you run a bolt or two
through both pipes, you're likely to crush the pipes when tightened.
You'll need to cram a spacer inside the 1" EMT to allow the bolt to be
properly tightened. Two small bolts, such as what's at the bottom of
the J mount will also work, but you'll have a difficult time fishing
it into the middle of the assembly.
Then I'll lag bolt (screw) it into the edge of the wood roof beams, which
should work. The trick is that they're forty feet up in the air (due to
the hillside being very steep at the fault line). I 'was' going to use
the balcony but this rocketdish is huuuuge!
Please remember that you have but one life to give for your internet
access.
Up here in the Santa Cruz Mountains, we'd ditch everything for cable; but
it's just not in the cards yet (even though we're practically in Silicon
Valley - you'd think we'd be wired!).
I'm familiar with the situation. When the county renewed the contract
with Comcast last year, they were forced to add service to several
marginal areas. Basically, anyone that complained sufficiently loudly
to the county got service. Those that didn't, such as most of the
summit area, got nothing. This should be a clue as to how things are
done. Next chance is July 2014.
http://64.175.136.240/sirepub/cache/2/cfp1hr55o2tzyzburhwfgxvn/350276908262012083128615.PDF
While nobody would even think of HugesNet (Ku band), a few neighbors have
started their two-year contract with Viasat Exede (Ka band). It's FAST,
about 12 to 18 Mbps down. Much slower up. But you just can't change the
latencies of 700ms to almost a second!
I have customers and accomplices with the same situation in the Aptos
hills. Exede (Wild Blue) is slightly slower in the Aptos area because
it's at the border of the spot beam. It also wanders a bit, varying
somewhat with what I guess is signal strength. I've been doing remote
maintenance (using Teamviewer) to several Exede systems. There's a
bit of a delay, but since it's a very constant delay, it's easy to
accommodate. VoIP requires saying "over" at the end of each
"transmission", but is totally functional. For fun, I called Exede
customer service via VoIP. No problems. Here's another users
experience:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r26978267-Exede-Exede-VOIP-via-OBi110-with-Google-Voice-is-outstandi
The big question is whether the customer can dump AT&T POTS in favor
of VoIP via Exede. The jury is still out but I'm lobbying for pulling
the plug.
Even the guys on the two-year Viasat contracts are adding WiFi dishes so
that they have a backup line-of-sight system. The WISPs out here are all
good guys. They let me, for example, keep my dish pointing to them as an
emergency backup, just in case my other WISP goes down (which is frequent
with the winds & power outages around here). We all have backup
generators and the WISPS have battery backup - but it's for naught when
the antenna blows down.
I've mounted a few radio antenna but this new Rocketdish antenna & Rocket
M2 radio is the BIGGEST HEAVIEST I've ever mounted - so it's more of a
mechanical problem than the planar and smaller parabolic antennas I've
had in the past.
The biggest problem now is the 40-foot drop should I fall off the ladder!
I did a 50 ladder climb to the 3rd floor to realign a HughesNet dish
on a tile roof. I'll never do that again. No problem once on the
roof, but the ladder was really bouncy. Later, I was told that the
correct way was to tie a 20ft ladder at midpoint to form a bipod to
stabilize the ladder.
If you're not sure of yourself, throw a heavy climbing rope (11mm)
over the top of the roof and down to the ground on the opposite side.
Tie it to a tree or something that will take your weight. Borrow a
sit harness (not just a belt) and tie yourself in. If you can't
handle the knots, get a rescue ascender/descender such as:
http://www.sherrilltree.com/Professional-Gear/Ascenders-Descenders
There should be plenty of tree climbers, wood butchers, or arborists
in the area. Bug me if you want names.
The hard part is not going to be mounting the dish. It's going to be
aiming and aligning the dish. Unless you're tied into the rafters, I
don't think the J-mount tied to the eaves is going to be strong
enough.
Don't forget to waterproof the exposed connectors. I wrap them with
teflon tape, and then cover the teflon tape with electrical tape. A
layer of clear coat acrylic paint (Krlyon) for UV protection and to
keep the tape from unraveling in the sun.
Can't you find a better or easier location? Something at the roof
peak would be easier to work with.
--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060
http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558