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Installation of Satellite
Internet .. part 1
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The second weekend of September, 2005, Glenn Simpson arrived to install our satellite Internet. Gwen and I had been looking forward to this for several weeks. Part 1 of the installation story will show what is normally "behind the scenes" and not experienced by the satellite owner but I insisted that I wanted to be a part of the experience. |
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The parts arrived in three boxes. The dish, elevation and skew controls in one box, the LNB arm and radio in another box, then the tripod in a third box. Glenn brought the offset adaptor and specialized parts with him. Of course, I had to customize the dish before Glenn arrived.
In the photo to the left, Glenn is assembling the LNB arm to the transmit radio. This is permanent and must be completed only this first time usually by the installer not the satellite owner. |
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Glenn uses the Terry Cannon bushing kit to make the skew controller operate smoothly. It really does make a difference. Without it you have the resistance of sheet metal edges and the uneven operation that will cause. |
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This is a "rough" assembly of the elevation controller to the skew controller. The knobs have not been installed yet to give this a quick-wrenchless assembly for the satellite owner. |
| Glenn installs the wrenchless elevation tool. This will allow the satellite owner to fine tune the elevation of the dish easily. |
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Here is the completed assembly of the skew controller and elevation controller ready to attach to the dish. Note the elevation tool knob to fine tune elevation and the knobs to lock-down the elevation once it is fine-tuned. |
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Here is when we unpacked the DW6000 modem before continuing with stringing the wire to the satellite location from the trailer. |
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I was hoping we could find a break in the trees to "shoot" the satellite but unfortunately our closest access was about 130 feet from the trailer and had to cross the resort road twice. That meant someone had to climb up the trees to string the wire to the satellite location. I volunteered over Glenn's strong objection but he was still the "foreman" of the operation and gave clear instructions of how high I must go and how to attach the wire to the trees. As he pointed out, "this will be the worst installation I will have to make so every one from now on will be easy." |
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The line leads from the trailer to the nearest tree, around the tree, then continuing across the road toward the satellite location. I was concerned about signal loss but Glenn assured me that it would be minimal. |
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October 23, 2005: We are within one week of leaving the resort to return to Grants Pass. Gwen and I plan to return to Howard Prairie Lake Resort for the 2006 season and it's not a good idea to have our satellite line running through the trees during the busy months of the season so I set a weekend task of digging a trench to bury the satellite cable. We like this parking site so rather than move next to the satellite dish I decided to create something more permanent to protect our satellite line. This was not |
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an easy task to do by hand. The trench had to pass through two other RV sites where the ground was compact due to heavy RV's passing over the entrance to each site for parking. I put the cable into conduit and dug the trench 134 feet long because Glenn had cut me once piece of wire to be 136 feet long. That's just about right. It brought me to within 18 feet of the dish and behind the trailer. I terminated |
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the trench with irrigation control boxes that I modified to allow the cable out of the box without drilling holes in the top. I have a second conduit and cable running through the boxes and trench for Security Bob's TV cable. Security Bob parks just next to me on the far side from the satellite dishes. His dish is 15 feet into a tree about 20 feet from my dish. Bob brought up conduit for his cable at the beginning of the season but never installed it. He's off hunting |
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now so I'll surprise him when he returns. The above photo shows how I installed the cable into each section before gluing the pieces together. I know that's not the way the professionals do it but I don't have a "fishing tape" to pull the line through the conduit. I did pull a 235lb test nylon string through both conduits with the line just in case either of us decide to pull |
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another line through the conduit. Gwen and I have done without TV for six months and have not felt we missed anything except the US Open Tennis match and the football season. So .. we may decide to invest in satellite TV, if so, I'll need to pull another line through that conduit. In the photo above you can see the distance to our Dodge parked on this side of the trailer. Looking the other way (the photo at left) you can see I end the trench about 18 feet from the dish. I may also put this cable into a conduit but keep it above ground. Security Bob's tree is just to the left of the irrigation box. Note that I went under a tree root from Bob's tree. Jimmy's trailer is just beyond my dish and has been prepared for winter. Jimmy is another staff person. He is from Missouri and says that we will have |
| a mild winter. He knows because the wasps are building their nests only 6 feet off the ground, if it was going to be a heavy winter, they would build them higher. He says this works back home and should work here too. The finished project |
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| looks pretty good. By next season no camper will ever know I have my satellite cable running under their camping site. This last shot was taken with a telephoto lens so it makes the trailer look closer to the dish than it really is ... BELIEVE ME! |
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