On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 14:50:33 -0800, (Charles Bishop)
wrote:

In article , Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

[snip]

We have 3 in the neighborhood. One more (me) as I'm pulling the plug
on DirecTV. I'm paying $75/month, 30% of which goes for paying to
watch commercials.

What are you going to have instead of DirectTV?

I just switched *to* DTV. DTV may be bad but Dish really sucks.

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 16:01:07 -0600, Robert Neville wrote:

" wrote:

Do they make a 4G access point for an entire house,
either 4G to WiFi or wired? Something that could have an antenna optimally
placed?

Yes - look he http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/h...ion/hf/main.do

Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the concept drawing.

Thanks! It's kinda expensive but *much* better than Hughes. The "overage"
cost ($10/GB) isn't bad either.

In article , Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

[snip]

We have 3 in the neighborhood. One more (me) as I'm pulling the plug
on DirecTV. I'm paying $75/month, 30% of which goes for paying to
watch commercials.

What are you going to have instead of DirectTV?

--
charles

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 14:50:33 -0800, (Charles
Bishop) wrote:

In article , Jeff Liebermann
wrote:
We have 3 in the neighborhood. One more (me) as I'm pulling the plug
on DirecTV. I'm paying $75/month, 30% of which goes for paying to
watch commercials.

What are you going to have instead of DirectTV?

I'm not sure yet. Netflix looks good, but I'll probably get bored
with it after about a year. YouTube, Hulu+, and others are yet to be
explored. The local video rental store closed, so renting DVD's and
BluRay disks are not an easy option. I have some friends with
extensive DVD collections, so I may borrow some stuff. The downtown
library also has a fair collection of what I watch (documentaries,
history, science, technology, how-to, and occasionally anything that
is mind numbing).

To keep from tying up a computah and screen, my initial attempt will
be either a Western Digital WD TV Live Streaming Media Player, or a
Windoze box running some PVR application:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_PVR_software_packages
I would go with Linux, but until there's a native Netflix application
(that doesn't require Silverlight), I'm stuck with Windoze.

I may also go without any TV. I didn't have a TV for about 15 years
of my life, and never really missed it. I'm rather disgusted with the
large number of historical distortions, glorified stupidity, amazing
factoids, and saturation advertising. Even so, I would have no
problem paying for such rubbish if it were all content, but not when
approximately 1/4 to 1/3 of it is advertising and self-promotion.

Incidentally, my all time disappointment was the Discovery channel's
streaming video. It runs for exactly 5 minutes, stops, waits for the
user to click "continue", and then plays a 30 second commercial. No
way to get past the commercial without clicking "continue". If ever
there was a way to chase away viewers, they have found it.

Another disappointment was testing a Sony and a Panasonic BluRay
player with Netflix etc built in. Both of these companies seem to
have a service that they sell to the streaming content provider to
"allow access" which is a nice term for shaking down the providers for
money to host their service. Sony had Pandora on their player, but
Panasonic did not. My crystal ball can see where this is going to go,
where in a few years, services will come and go depending on contract
negotiations with Sony and Panasonic. No thanks.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 18:19:57 -0400, "
wrote:

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 14:50:33 -0800, (Charles Bishop)
wrote:
What are you going to have instead of DirectTV?

I just switched *to* DTV. DTV may be bad but Dish really sucks.

I wanted to go with Dish Networks originally. They carry UCTV (the
last remaining educational TV station), but DirecTV didn't. However,
I have to shoot through a hole in the trees to see 101. No view of
any of the other birds as they're either behind the trees|hills, or
require placing a 2nd dish in an awkward location to go through the
hole:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/DBS/index.html
The photos were taken during the previous solar outage, where the sun
gets behind the satellite and temporarily trashes reception.


--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 17:17:27 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 18:19:57 -0400, "
wrote:

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 14:50:33 -0800, (Charles Bishop)
wrote:
What are you going to have instead of DirectTV?

I just switched *to* DTV. DTV may be bad but Dish really sucks.

I wanted to go with Dish Networks originally. They carry UCTV (the
last remaining educational TV station), but DirecTV didn't. However,
I have to shoot through a hole in the trees to see 101. No view of
any of the other birds as they're either behind the trees|hills, or
require placing a 2nd dish in an awkward location to go through the
hole:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/DBS/index.html
The photos were taken during the previous solar outage, where the sun
gets behind the satellite and temporarily trashes reception.

I've been with DISH for four years. In that time, they've had to replace a
DVR at least five times and they still suck; freezes, lost sound sync, dropped
picture, and all. That's with a perfect sky! When it rains there's a 50/50
chance we'll lose signal for at least some period. I have *none* of that with
DTV (a big thunderstorm caused a LOS for maybe five minutes, once). I like
the DVR setup much better, too, though I don't have a "Hopper".

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 13:43:39 -0700, miso wrote:

Can't you find a better or easier location? Something at the roof
peak would be easier to work with.

If you have real estate, I would try to mount the sat dish on a pole in
the ground. Yeah I know, you mountain folk have trees to contend with.

Do the math. The CONUS geosync birds vary in elevation from 41 to 47
degrees elevation at longitude 122. In order to clear a 150ft tree,
one would need more than 150ft of land clear of trees to the south. On
the local postage stamp size lots, that's unlikely. (One acre is 208
x 208ft). However, if the slope is downward to the south, that
effectively shrinks the trees a bit, which will help.



--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 20:28:18 -0400, "
wrote:

I've been with DISH for four years. In that time, they've had to replace a
DVR at least five times and they still suck; freezes, lost sound sync, dropped
picture, and all.

I've gone through 2 receivers and am now on my 2nd DirecTV DVR. The
first two receivers had serious sensitivity issues and an incredibly
slow remote control response time. The first DVR developed lousy
noises from the Seagate SATA drive. Rather than have it fixed, I
opted for a better model. I wanted to get the HD model, but without
the HD service. However, they wanted $100 for handling and another 2
year contract extension, so I declined.

Incidentally, when I hear symptoms like the one's you describe, I
usually assume that the dish mounting is loose, the dish misaligned,
the coax is soaked with water, the connectors are falling apart, or
various combinations of these. It's not unusual for me to find a dish
that has very loose lag screws into the beam or a flimsy pipe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3Xd2xIsUxQ
I've also seen LNB's full of water. I used to do some rather
profitable work cleaning up the mess after the installer put in his
allocation of 1.0 hrs maximum installation time. I have an ancient
Sathawk 3000 meter which is a big help. Dish alignment has to be
within 0.5 degrees, which is really tricky. The bigger dishes are
even more critical, especially since there are about 8 birds scattered
around each major (101-119) 3 degree slot.

That's with a perfect sky! When it rains there's a 50/50
chance we'll lose signal for at least some period. I have *none* of that with
DTV (a big thunderstorm caused a LOS for maybe five minutes, once). I like
the DVR setup much better, too, though I don't have a "Hopper".

Note the photos at:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/DBS/index.html
The LNB is a hand picked 1.7dB NF device. The dish is an 80cm
diameter dish. The added 4-5dB gain from the larger dish gives me a
much better rain fade margin. Rain fade in Santa Cruz CA runs about
3dB but can climb to 6dB with thick clouds, rain, and soaked tree
leafs. I have an even larger 1 meter dish which I have used in the
past that works even better. The problem is that the dish is
sufficiently large that even a mild breeze will move it across my flat
roof.

Incidentally, an easy way to see how much rain fade your system can
handle is to put a wet towel (absorber) in front of the dish. Covering
half the dish is 6dB. 1/4th of the dish area is about 3dB loss. This
also works for wi-fi links.


--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 18:12:30 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 20:28:18 -0400, "
wrote:

I've been with DISH for four years. In that time, they've had to replace a
DVR at least five times and they still suck; freezes, lost sound sync, dropped
picture, and all.

I've gone through 2 receivers and am now on my 2nd DirecTV DVR. The
first two receivers had serious sensitivity issues and an incredibly
slow remote control response time. The first DVR developed lousy
noises from the Seagate SATA drive. Rather than have it fixed, I
opted for a better model. I wanted to get the HD model, but without
the HD service. However, they wanted $100 for handling and another 2
year contract extension, so I declined.

Incidentally, when I hear symptoms like the one's you describe, I
usually assume that the dish mounting is loose, the dish misaligned,
the coax is soaked with water, the connectors are falling apart, or
various combinations of these. It's not unusual for me to find a dish
that has very loose lag screws into the beam or a flimsy pipe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3Xd2xIsUxQ

Nope. After we went through the third DVR within a couple of months, I
insisted that they give me a *new* one, not one that's been recycled and not
fixed. They had a technician come out to deliver it (evidently they always
ship out "refurbs" but the installers have new ones, also). He went through
the entire system and may have replaced the LNB, as well. He was mucking
around with it for quite a while. Nope, still happens.

I've also seen LNB's full of water. I used to do some rather
profitable work cleaning up the mess after the installer put in his
allocation of 1.0 hrs maximum installation time. I have an ancient
Sathawk 3000 meter which is a big help. Dish alignment has to be
within 0.5 degrees, which is really tricky. The bigger dishes are
even more critical, especially since there are about 8 birds scattered
around each major (101-119) 3 degree slot.

That's with a perfect sky! When it rains there's a 50/50
chance we'll lose signal for at least some period. I have *none* of that with
DTV (a big thunderstorm caused a LOS for maybe five minutes, once). I like
the DVR setup much better, too, though I don't have a "Hopper".

Note the photos at:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/DBS/index.html
The LNB is a hand picked 1.7dB NF device. The dish is an 80cm
diameter dish. The added 4-5dB gain from the larger dish gives me a
much better rain fade margin. Rain fade in Santa Cruz CA runs about
3dB but can climb to 6dB with thick clouds, rain, and soaked tree
leafs. I have an even larger 1 meter dish which I have used in the
past that works even better. The problem is that the dish is
sufficiently large that even a mild breeze will move it across my flat
roof.

Incidentally, an easy way to see how much rain fade your system can
handle is to put a wet towel (absorber) in front of the dish. Covering
half the dish is 6dB. 1/4th of the dish area is about 3dB loss. This
also works for wi-fi links.

Good idea. The DISH dish is at ground level. The DTV dish is hanging off the
deck. Both are pretty easy to get to. BTW, half is 3dB.

On 8/26/2012 5:17 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 18:19:57 -0400, "
wrote:

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 14:50:33 -0800, (Charles Bishop)
wrote:
What are you going to have instead of DirectTV?

I just switched *to* DTV. DTV may be bad but Dish really sucks.

I wanted to go with Dish Networks originally. They carry UCTV (the
last remaining educational TV station), but DirecTV didn't. However,
I have to shoot through a hole in the trees to see 101. No view of
any of the other birds as they're either behind the trees|hills, or
require placing a 2nd dish in an awkward location to go through the
hole:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/DBS/index.html
The photos were taken during the previous solar outage, where the sun
gets behind the satellite and temporarily trashes reception.

I got that Channel Master dish off of Craigs. It's a nice one. I think
the company has been sold once or twice. It was an Andrews product, then
some other company bought it out. When you have to compete with Chinese
junk, a molded fiberglass dish isn't very competitive.

On Friday, August 24, 2012 2:53:38 AM UTC-4, J.G. wrote:
I picked up a Rocketdish RocketM2 radio for WiFi reception and tried to mount it on an old Dish-TV antenna arm. http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/...mg/9047632.jpg The problem is it's about six inches too short (see picture above). I had planned on bolting this to the wood boards framing the edge of a tile roof (without going on the roof itself). Advice sought: a) Would you just extend the mast with a pipe? b) Would you buy a new mast (from where)? c) Is there another trick I can't think of? I'm hoping a clever idea will pop out of this. Otherwise, I'll just buy a new antenna arm and make sure it's longer somehow!

Use a yagi. I mounted mine on an old dish mount. Made it out of pvc and used a 90deg fitting to put it on the dish mount. Lots of element calculators on the net will give you the specs. You need to know the frequency. Works great and vety little wind load.

http://www.jamesgangnc.com/yagi.jpg

I was getting 0 to 1 bar on our hot spot and now get 3 to 4. 4 is the max.

I used some leftover small copper tubing for the elements. I used a holesaw to make a hole under the driven element to attach the rg6.

In article ,
" wrote:

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 14:50:33 -0800, (Charles Bishop)
wrote:

In article , Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

[snip]

We have 3 in the neighborhood. One more (me) as I'm pulling the plug
on DirecTV. I'm paying $75/month, 30% of which goes for paying to
watch commercials.

What are you going to have instead of DirectTV?

I just switched *to* DTV. DTV may be bad but Dish really sucks.

Did you get the DVR? How much a month? How many TVs.

--
charles

In article , Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 14:50:33 -0800, (Charles
Bishop) wrote:

In article , Jeff Liebermann
wrote:
We have 3 in the neighborhood. One more (me) as I'm pulling the plug
on DirecTV. I'm paying $75/month, 30% of which goes for paying to
watch commercials.

What are you going to have instead of DirectTV?

[snip unsurety]

I may also go without any TV. I didn't have a TV for about 15 years
of my life, and never really missed it. I'm rather disgusted with the
large number of historical distortions, glorified stupidity, amazing
factoids, and saturation advertising. Even so, I would have no
problem paying for such rubbish if it were all content, but not when
approximately 1/4 to 1/3 of it is advertising and self-promotion.

I recently shut down my DTV, mostly since sis was paying for it and I
didn't want her to have to. For a while, I watched DVDs, but then had to
move the TV &c, and didn't bother to put it back. So, I'm TVless again at
least for a while. I do notice that I get more things done without it and
haven't gone into withdrawal.


Incidentally, my all time disappointment was the Discovery channel's
streaming video. It runs for exactly 5 minutes, stops, waits for the
user to click "continue", and then plays a 30 second commercial. No
way to get past the commercial without clicking "continue". If ever
there was a way to chase away viewers, they have found it.

Another disappointment was testing a Sony and a Panasonic BluRay
player with Netflix etc built in. Both of these companies seem to
have a service that they sell to the streaming content provider to
"allow access" which is a nice term for shaking down the providers for
money to host their service. Sony had Pandora on their player, but
Panasonic did not. My crystal ball can see where this is going to go,
where in a few years, services will come and go depending on contract
negotiations with Sony and Panasonic. No thanks.

Until all this shakes out it will be difficult to choose. OTH, people have
Netflix, DVD and/or streaming and like it.

--
charles

On Mon, 27 Aug 2012 17:10:43 -0800, (Charles Bishop)
wrote:

In article ,
" wrote:

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 14:50:33 -0800, (Charles Bishop)
wrote:

In article , Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

[snip]

We have 3 in the neighborhood. One more (me) as I'm pulling the plug
on DirecTV. I'm paying $75/month, 30% of which goes for paying to
watch commercials.

What are you going to have instead of DirectTV?

I just switched *to* DTV. DTV may be bad but Dish really sucks.

Did you get the DVR? How much a month? How many TVs.

Yes, it's fantastic; far better than the DISH DVR (not Hopper) and any cable
DVR I've ever had.

Don't remember how much I pay. The cost structure is impossible to decode and
I haven't looked at the bill lately.

Three TVs, two HDTV, one not. The non-HD TV box can't access the DVR so it
can only show what's on now.

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 09:12:35 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

Can your modified mount survive a 169 lb pull at the middle of the dish?
I don't think so. Note that the wind load varies with the square of
the wind speed, so getting max wind speed is fairly important.

I might have to remove the mount anyway because I just now, belatedly,
realized WHY it's tilted. See picture below:
http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/...mg/9444780.jpg

For some strange reason, it didn't dawn on me (until now) that the fact
the pipe was circular did NOT indicate that the location of the holes
didn't matter.

Notice I'm slightly off in my holes, hence, the dish is actually mounted
crooked. Up 'till now, I thought the J arm was bent - but it's my mind
that was warped.

Funny how the FIRST time you do stuff, the 'obvious' suddenly becomes
obvious!

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 09:27:37 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

The wind load should be:
From the graph for a 1 meter dish, that's 187 newtons or 42 lbs.

As Jeff well knows, the winds in the Santa Cruz mountains are terrific,
so, I'm sure this temporary rig of my spare Ubiquiti Nanobridge M2 will
fail his calculated wind-load tests!
http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/...mg/9445723.jpg

What I'm doing right now is following Jeff's advice by surveying the
noise level swiveling 180 degrees (the house is in the way for the other
half) ... so the mount isn't permanent.

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 13:40:42 -0600, Robert Neville wrote:

Don't know what your Verzon coverage is like, but they've been rolling
out LTE across the country.

Verizon 4G just got here!

I'm not familiar with how it works, but a neighbor put an antenna on his
car roof and drove up to my house and he was getting 15Mbps down speeds
with it.

My problem is I'm confused how you SHARE the connection to all the
computers. I'm not sure how that works ... but if it does, it could KILL
the WISPs out here who make a business because Comcast doesn't serve us
and DSL is far too far away.

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 16:43:52 -0400, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:

Do they make a 4G access point for an entire house,
either 4G to WiFi or wired?

Exactly my concern!

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 09:55:12 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

You need the ladder, which should also be tied to a rope thrown over the
roof peak and tied to a tree with a separate line. It doesn't need to
be 11mm. Just enough to keep the ladder from sliding sideways. The
safety rope is just in case something goes wrong.

I just bought 100 feet of parachute cord at the surplus store. I bought
it for shoelaces, but it will work just fine for the ladder tie.

Funny, I hadn't even thought of tying the ladder down!

Here's an install I just did at a different location:
http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/...mg/9446245.png

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 13:43:39 -0700, miso wrote:

If you have real estate, I would try to mount the sat dish on a pole in
the ground. Yeah I know, you mountain folk have trees to contend with.

I've done that before, using an old satellite dish stem as the mount
point. Poles are ugly though. And the guy wires tend to flip the kids as
they run through them, forgetting about them until the last second.

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 09:41:45 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

The teflon plus electrical tape wrap is for electrical and RF
connectors. Most of those are internally protected inside the Rocket
housing. The four rubber boots over the four RF connectors is probably
adequate.

One thing that is driving me crazy is that I have to climb the ladder to
disconnect the Rocket M2 to run tests with my (now spare) Nanobridge M2.
http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/...mg/9446245.png

The Nanobridge is even worse! Taking the connector out of the Nanobridge
requires dexterity and you need three or four hands (hard to do on a
ladder!).
http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/...mg/9445723.jpg

So, my next investment is in waterproof RJ45 couplers!!!!!!!!!!

Funny the things you learn only AFTER doing stuff for the first time!

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 17:08:04 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

Netflix looks good, but I'll probably get bored with it

The problem with Netflix is that they don't have all their movies online.

On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 18:34:29 +0000 (UTC), "J.G."
wrote:

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 09:41:45 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

The teflon plus electrical tape wrap is for electrical and RF
connectors. Most of those are internally protected inside the Rocket
housing. The four rubber boots over the four RF connectors is probably
adequate.

One thing that is driving me crazy is that I have to climb the ladder to
disconnect the Rocket M2 to run tests with my (now spare) Nanobridge M2.
http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/...mg/9446245.png

The Nanobridge is even worse! Taking the connector out of the Nanobridge
requires dexterity and you need three or four hands (hard to do on a
ladder!).
http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/...mg/9445723.jpg

So, my next investment is in waterproof RJ45 couplers!!!!!!!!!!

I bet they have some kind of boot you can put over the splice.

Funny the things you learn only AFTER doing stuff for the first time!

On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 18:34:29 +0000 (UTC), "J.G."
wrote:

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 09:41:45 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

The teflon plus electrical tape wrap is for electrical and RF
connectors. Most of those are internally protected inside the Rocket
housing. The four rubber boots over the four RF connectors is probably
adequate.

One thing that is driving me crazy is that I have to climb the ladder to
disconnect the Rocket M2 to run tests with my (now spare) Nanobridge M2.
http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/...mg/9446245.png

The two "U" clamps holding the dish are slightly twisted.

The Nanobridge is even worse! Taking the connector out of the Nanobridge
requires dexterity and you need three or four hands (hard to do on a
ladder!).
http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/...mg/9445723.jpg

Once I tie myself off with a safety belt, I don't have to keep one
hand on the ladder, or risk my life using both hands on the antenna.
Throw an 11mm rope over the roof and tie it to something really
sturdy. Get a safety belt, sit harness, or just tie yourself off with
more rope. Then, you get to use both hands.

So, my next investment is in waterproof RJ45 couplers!!!!!!!!!!

No such thing. Shove some clear silicon waterproofing grease (the
same stuff used by the phone company) into the RJ45. The best place
to find that is at the local scuba dive shop. It's used to seal
camera housings. Don't use too much. When done, just wrap some clear
cellophane wrap around the coupler, and then embalm it in electrical
tape. If exposed to sun, spray with clear acrylic to keep the tape
from crumbling.

Funny the things you learn only AFTER doing stuff for the first time!

Learn by Destroying(tm).
Remember, you have only one life to give for this project.
--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 18:28:01 +0000 (UTC), "J.G."
wrote:

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 09:55:12 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

You need the ladder, which should also be tied to a rope thrown over the
roof peak and tied to a tree with a separate line. It doesn't need to
be 11mm. Just enough to keep the ladder from sliding sideways. The
safety rope is just in case something goes wrong.

I just bought 100 feet of parachute cord at the surplus store. I bought
it for shoelaces, but it will work just fine for the ladder tie.

No. Parachute cord is too thin and too bouncy. Tie some to a tree
and put your weight on it. Notice how it stretches. The local ACE
Hardware stores have 100ft lengths of shoddy 11mm rope in assorted
garish colors for $10 to $17. However, for stabilizing the ladder,
yellow polypropylene utility rope (wire pull rope) is good enough.

Funny, I hadn't even thought of tying the ladder down!

I've seen the results a few such sideways slips. Usually, it's from
improper placement of the ladder legs. If one ladder leg goes into a
gopher hole, the ladder (and you) will go sideways.

I've also had it happen to me, when I put a ladder leg onto a knot
hole on my redwood deck, which popped out and sent the ladder
sideways. Fortunately, it wasn't very high and I broke my fall by
ripping out the rain gutter (and shredding my hands).

Here's an install I just did at a different location:
http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/...mg/9446245.png

As I mentioned, the two clamps are slightly twisted. It's not enough
to make any difference, but it just looks odd.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 18:21:04 +0000 (UTC), "J.G."
wrote:

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 13:40:42 -0600, Robert Neville wrote:

Don't know what your Verzon coverage is like, but they've been rolling
out LTE across the country.

Verizon 4G just got here!

Well, LTE has been on the local SLV cell sites for about 9 months.

I'm not familiar with how it works, but a neighbor put an antenna on his
car roof and drove up to my house and he was getting 15Mbps down speeds
with it.

My problem is I'm confused how you SHARE the connection to all the
computers. I'm not sure how that works ... but if it does, it could KILL
the WISPs out here who make a business because Comcast doesn't serve us
and DSL is far too far away.

Samsung SCH-LC11
http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones/SCH-LC11ZKAVZW
I played with one last weekend. Connection via Wi-Fi was erratic and
would frequently disconnect. It does some strange dance for about two
minutes when first turned on. It looks like it's ready to use, but
it's not. No special software needed. No diagnostics or signal
strength indication. We were in a fringe area for 4G, so speed was
slow.

There's also a USB 4G device. No 3G so if you're travelling, you may
have coverage problems:
http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/device/usb-modem/pantech-4g-lte
Just read the reviews and draw your own conclusions. I haven't had
time to try it.





--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Tuesday, September 11, 2012 3:58:58 PM UTC-4, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 18:21:04 +0000 (UTC), "J.G." wrote: On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 13:40:42 -0600, Robert Neville wrote: Don't know what your Verzon coverage is like, but they've been rolling out LTE across the country. Verizon 4G just got here! Well, LTE has been on the local SLV cell sites for about 9 months. I'm not familiar with how it works, but a neighbor put an antenna on his car roof and drove up to my house and he was getting 15Mbps down speeds with it. My problem is I'm confused how you SHARE the connection to all the computers. I'm not sure how that works ... but if it does, it could KILL the WISPs out here who make a business because Comcast doesn't serve us and DSL is far too far away. Samsung SCH-LC11 http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones/SCH-LC11ZKAVZW I played with one last weekend. Connection via Wi-Fi was erratic and would frequently disconnect. It does some strange dance for about two minutes when first turned on. It looks like it's ready to use, but it's not. No special software needed. No diagnostics or signal strength indication. We were in a fringe area for 4G, so speed was slow. There's also a USB 4G device. No 3G so if you're travelling, you may have coverage problems: http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/device/usb-modem/pantech-4g-lte Just read the reviews and draw your own conclusions. I haven't had time to try it. -- Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

I'm using a verizon wireless hotspot for home internet. We don't have cable or dsl. It works pretty well. I feed it into a wireless to wired client connect to a regular ethernet switch for the wired stuff. Two limitations, the dhcp will only issue 9 addresses, and you have to get either 5g or 10g a month. So no online video like netflix. But it beats the heck out of dial up. We're at the limit of coverage but the yagi solved that problem.

On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 18:21:25 +0000 (UTC), "J.G."
wrote:

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 16:43:52 -0400, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:

Do they make a 4G access point for an entire house,
either 4G to WiFi or wired?

Exactly my concern!

I've since found that they do. Verizon sells one for about $250.

On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 18:21:04 +0000 (UTC), "J.G."
wrote:

On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 13:40:42 -0600, Robert Neville wrote:

Don't know what your Verzon coverage is like, but they've been rolling
out LTE across the country.

Verizon 4G just got here!

I'm not familiar with how it works, but a neighbor put an antenna on his
car roof and drove up to my house and he was getting 15Mbps down speeds
with it.

My problem is I'm confused how you SHARE the connection to all the
computers. I'm not sure how that works ... but if it does, it could KILL
the WISPs out here who make a business because Comcast doesn't serve us
and DSL is far too far away.

It uses WiFi from the hot spot to the computers. My cell phone will do the
same but its range is limited and I really don't want to hang it on a pole
outside.

On 9/11/2012 11:29 AM, J.G. wrote:
On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 13:43:39 -0700, miso wrote:

If you have real estate, I would try to mount the sat dish on a pole in
the ground. Yeah I know, you mountain folk have trees to contend with.

I've done that before, using an old satellite dish stem as the mount
point. Poles are ugly though. And the guy wires tend to flip the kids as
they run through them, forgetting about them until the last second.

The setups I've seen don't use guy wires. I've seen a real wooden
telephone pole used and also galvanized pipe.

Guy wires are usually bad news. They do dramatically reduce the cost of
installation hardware. But they are hard to see.

On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 20:42:21 -0400, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:

It uses WiFi from the hot spot to the computers. My cell phone will do
the same but its range is limited and I really don't want to hang it on
a pole outside.

I've been told that we can rubber band our cellphone to the head of a
Dish TV antenna, which is a portion of a parabola, which will amplify the
cell phone signal.

Anyone know if there's any truth to that?

On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 18:58:51 -0700, miso wrote:

It is really amazing how sharp a satellite dish is. You probably need to
be within half a degree to be optimal.

Yep. The DBS satellites are 3 degrees apart across the ecliptic. If
that was the only criteria, the dish pointing accuracy would need to
be less than +/- 1.5 degrees. However, there are multiple birds in
each satellite slot, which means too narrow a beamwidth can become a
problem if a bird drifts too close to the edge of the slot. I found
that out the hard way when I tried to use a 3 meter dish for DBS
reception. With the worm gear adjustment on the dish azimuth, I could
individually pick out which of the 5(?) birds were in the 101 slot.
Too narrow a beamwidth is NOT a problem with most DBS dishes. The
feed horn and dish parabolic contours are designed to give about a 2.1
degree -3dB beamwidth, which is what's needed to cover the entire 3
degree slot. However, for that to work, the dish has to be aligned to
something like +/-0.5 degrees. It can be done, but it takes LOTS of
practice and patience[1].

That is one of the reason I just
laugh at the iphone sat positioning app.

Well, I bought one for my Droid X for only one stupid reason. I
wanted an easy way to determine if I had a chance to shoot through a
hole in the forest canopy. I think you've seen my 101 hole:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/DBS/slides/101a.html
With the Droid app, I can take a photo of the tree canopy from a
prospective antenna location and mark where the satellites should be.
I then send the JPG to the tree trimmer and mark where to trim the
branches. That's not a problem you'll have in the flats, but in the
forest, the app is quite useful.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.agi.android.augmentedreality
I've never bothered to run my own setup. I'll post a photo when I
have time.


[1] I fixed one install where the dish was on the roof, near the edge
of about a 4ft overhang. I'm on the roof doing the adjustments and
getting good signal. As soon as I climb off the roof, the picture and
signal fall apart. I climb back on the roof, and it's back to normal.
What was happening was the roof was bending very slightly from my
weight. I moved the dish back from the edge to the middle of a load
bearing wall, and everything stayed put.

Another nightmare was a dish on a pole set in concrete. The owner
said that they had to realign the dish every few months. The problem
was obvious. The hillside was a slow moving avalanche. It eventually
collapsed into a ravine a few years later.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 18:53:39 -0700, miso wrote:

On 9/11/2012 11:29 AM, J.G. wrote:
On Sun, 26 Aug 2012 13:43:39 -0700, miso wrote:

If you have real estate, I would try to mount the sat dish on a pole in
the ground. Yeah I know, you mountain folk have trees to contend with.

I've done that before, using an old satellite dish stem as the mount
point. Poles are ugly though. And the guy wires tend to flip the kids as
they run through them, forgetting about them until the last second.

The setups I've seen don't use guy wires. I've seen a real wooden
telephone pole used and also galvanized pipe.

Agreed. Even a Rohn 25 is self supporting to 20 ft. Same with a 10ft
steel pipe. I start using guy wires at 20ft and up.

Guy wires are usually bad news. They do dramatically reduce the cost of
installation hardware. But they are hard to see.

Before a falling tree in Feb 2012 trashed all the antennas on my roof,
I had a 10ft pipe with a mess of antennas on top, that was supported
by three guy wires. Because it was a tilt over base, the guy wires
were mandatory. I was constantly tripping over or walking into the
guy wires. I'm going to replace it with a tripod base, which doesn't
require guy wires.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Wed, 12 Sep 2012 03:50:59 +0000 (UTC), "J.G."
wrote:

On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 20:42:21 -0400, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:

It uses WiFi from the hot spot to the computers. My cell phone will do
the same but its range is limited and I really don't want to hang it on
a pole outside.

I've been told that we can rubber band our cellphone to the head of a
Dish TV antenna, which is a portion of a parabola, which will amplify the
cell phone signal.

I've seen Chinese cookware used as a reflector for WiFi signals. Some have
gotten a few km range this way.

Anyone know if there's any truth to that?

Is the cell tower in geosync orbit?

On Wed, 12 Sep 2012 03:50:59 +0000 (UTC), "J.G."
wrote:

On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 20:42:21 -0400, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:

It uses WiFi from the hot spot to the computers. My cell phone will do
the same but its range is limited and I really don't want to hang it on
a pole outside.

I've been told that we can rubber band our cellphone to the head of a
Dish TV antenna, which is a portion of a parabola, which will amplify the
cell phone signal.

Anyone know if there's any truth to that?

It will probably do some good at 1900MHz and not much good at 850MHz.
Anything is better than the stock internal low-SAR antenna. You would
look rather odd wearing a satellite dish on your head. A flat piece
of sheet metal or aluminum foil will work almost as well as a dish.

Let's do the math. A DBS dish is about 0.6 meters wide.
At 850MHz, the maximum gain for a parabolic reflector is:
gain = 9.87 * Dia^2 / wavelength^2 * (feed efficiency)
gain = 9.87 * 600mm^2 / 353mm^2 * 0.4
gain = 11.4
dBi = 10 log(11.4) = 10.6dBi
At 1900MHz, the gain = 17.5dbi

The 40% feed efficiency (that's the 0.4) is probably optimistic.
That's also if everything is lossless, perfectly matched, built
correctly, and properly designed, which is not the case for hanging a
cell phone on a DBS dish. In receive, all of the RF that hits the
reflector from a distant source hits the dish and is reflected toward
the cell phone. Therefore 10.6 and 17.5dBi are the maximum receive
antenna gains.

However, it's much worse in transmit. The cell phone transmits RF in
all directions. With an electrically shortened antenna, it's almost a
spherical pattern. Only some of that RF hits the dish. Most of it
flys off in useless directions. The percentage is the area of the
dish divided by the surface area of a sphere at the same distance from
the dish focus. The area of an 600mm dish is about:
Pi * 300mm^2 = 283,000 sq-mm
The surface area of the sphere is:
4 * Pi * radius^2 = 4 * 3.14 * 350^2 = 1,538,600 sq-mm
Therefore, the percentage of RF that actually hits the dish from the
cell phone antenna is:
283,000 / 1,538,600 = 18.4%
In terms of antenna gain, that's a loss of:
10 * log(0.184) = -7.4dB
Therefore, the transmit antenna gain will be no better than:
10.6dBi - 7.4dB = 3.2dBi gain (850MHz)
17.5dbi - 7.4dB = 10.1dBi gain (1900MHz)

That's an improvement over the internal antenna, but hardly worth the
effort at 850MHz. Not too horrible at 1900MHz. However, you can do
better with an external antenna connector and a high gain yagi, panel,
patch, other cellular antenna, or just a bigger dish or plate.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Another nightmare was a dish on a pole set in concrete. The owner
said that they had to realign the dish every few months. The problem
was obvious. The hillside was a slow moving avalanche. It eventually
collapsed into a ravine a few years later.


As you probably know, you can spot slides with trees. Trees just don't
grow at angles. We may not have forests to deal with, but lots of
sliding land around the bay.

It is tough to get better than 3 degrees out of a cell phone or GPS flux
gate. It seems to me you would have to trim a lot more trees than needed
to get your window.

I'm curious what the next step above a Lensatic Cammenga (+/-2.25
degrees) I see some boating flux gates spec 0.5RMS. Now that means if
you want +/- 3 sigma, you are at +/- 1.5 degrees.

There is some irony that the best compass you can buy is probably a big
dish and a geosynchronous satellite.

On Wed, 12 Sep 2012 21:17:01 -0700, miso wrote:

As you probably know, you can spot slides with trees. Trees just don't
grow at angles. We may not have forests to deal with, but lots of
sliding land around the bay.

I live on a hillside. Plenty of trees simulating a slow motion mud
slide. I have one oak that I've been watching for about 30 years. I
think it's time to take it down before it creates a big problem.

It is tough to get better than 3 degrees out of a cell phone or GPS flux
gate. It seems to me you would have to trim a lot more trees than needed
to get your window.

I can get very accurate during the bi-annual "solar outage"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_outage
in late Feb and late Sept. I can't use it to aim the dish, but I can
use it to see where I should clear the tree branches.

I'm curious what the next step above a Lensatic Cammenga (+/-2.25
degrees) I see some boating flux gates spec 0.5RMS. Now that means if
you want +/- 3 sigma, you are at +/- 1.5 degrees.

Dunno. I don't use a compass. I get the dish vertical with a bubble
level. I preset the elevation and the skew (for dual LNB's). I then
just spin the dish around the best guess azimuth. Works every time.

There is some irony that the best compass you can buy is probably a big
dish and a geosynchronous satellite.

I think a GPS receiver is just as accurate for speed and direction.
I've ridden on a straight road and noticed that the GPS indicated
direction was absolutely stable and never changed.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On 9/12/2012 10:47 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Wed, 12 Sep 2012 21:17:01 -0700, miso wrote:

As you probably know, you can spot slides with trees. Trees just don't
grow at angles. We may not have forests to deal with, but lots of
sliding land around the bay.

I live on a hillside. Plenty of trees simulating a slow motion mud
slide. I have one oak that I've been watching for about 30 years. I
think it's time to take it down before it creates a big problem.

It is tough to get better than 3 degrees out of a cell phone or GPS flux
gate. It seems to me you would have to trim a lot more trees than needed
to get your window.

I can get very accurate during the bi-annual "solar outage"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_outage
in late Feb and late Sept. I can't use it to aim the dish, but I can
use it to see where I should clear the tree branches.

I'm curious what the next step above a Lensatic Cammenga (+/-2.25
degrees) I see some boating flux gates spec 0.5RMS. Now that means if
you want +/- 3 sigma, you are at +/- 1.5 degrees.

Dunno. I don't use a compass. I get the dish vertical with a bubble
level. I preset the elevation and the skew (for dual LNB's). I then
just spin the dish around the best guess azimuth. Works every time.

There is some irony that the best compass you can buy is probably a big
dish and a geosynchronous satellite.

I think a GPS receiver is just as accurate for speed and direction.
I've ridden on a straight road and noticed that the GPS indicated
direction was absolutely stable and never changed.


GPS direction is basically computed from waypoints as you move. [The FCC
has a web page to get the bearing between two waypoints. The GPS does a
similar computation.] But getting a bearing at a fixed location means
you aren't moving. ;-)

The higher end GPSs have fluxgate compasses because if you aren't moving
fast enough, the GPS can't compute the bearing. I gather even without SA
there are time dependent errors in the GPS signal. Hiking up a steep
hill usually slows you down, so the differential waypoint technique
starts to get very inaccurate. The GPS will switch from the virtual
compass to the fluxgate compass based on the speed estimate.

It you take a GPS and "park it", but log the trail based on raw
readings, you can see the location wander. Some GPSs filter this
wandering since people are confused if they are still and the GPS
indicates they are moving.

There is a lot of "enhancements" in GPS tracking that can fool you into
thinking the GPS is better than it really is. For instance, if the GPS
has mapping, it will snap onto a road even if the actual position is off
a bit. Once in a while this scheme can snap onto the wrong road.