Re: [amsat-bb] Chimney Mounting for sat antennas?

[nh6vb@xxxxxxxx]

Hey Paul,
Sorry I missed you all in San Diego, but had to work here. By the way I
heard of all different kinds of antenna mounts, but what is a chimney? 
Imac makes some for their tubes but they are useless for antennas. HI HI.
73 from the tropical Hawaii. Peter, NH6VB. ALOHA.

On Sat, 23 Oct 1999 14:00:47 -0700 Paul Williamson <kb5mu@AMSAT.Org>
writes:
>At 03:30 PM 10/23/99 -0400, Scott Schmautz wrote:
>>Hi all,
>>Anyone have any experience with chimney mounting satellite antennas?
>>I have recently moved into a new house, and am getting ready to put 
>up my
>>mode B antennas when P3D gets going. I am going to get my roof done 
>in the
>>next year or so, and would prefer to mount the antennas on something 
>other
>>than a roof tripod. If anyone has any tips on chimney mounting the
>>antennas, ie hardware sources, mounting configurations etc, please 
>let me
>>know.
>>I would be mounting the 22 el vhf/18 el uhf KLM ants, with probably a 
>Myers
>>2.4 ghz rcve antenna, with the appropriate preamps etc on the mast.
>
>I had a setup like that (22/40 KLM's) chimney-mounted for several 
>years while I was sharing a house. I found the hardware offered by 
>Radio Shack to be too wimpy-looking, but I found some very robust 
>galvanized steel hardware at an independent TV shop. (Good luck 
>finding an independent TV shop these days.) I used three corner 
>brackets with straps to stand up a mast of steel pipe. It was a 
>relatively tall chimney, affording reasonably good leverage. Az/El 
>rotor mounted together on the top of the pipe, making the whole thing 
>top-heavy and quite awkward to handle. I stuck a two-by-four under the 
>bottom of the mast to prevent the pipe from punching through the 
>roof.
>
>I'm not sure it's good for the chimney. They aren't really designed to 
>take that kind of stress. I didn't see any damage, though, except for 
>gouges in the corner bricks where the mount straps and hardware dug 
>in.
>
>Here in San Diego we don't get much weather, except a few days of high 
>winds every year or two. It's a pretty benign environment for antenna 
>mounting.
>
>Our fireplace was used frequently. The lower mast and rotors ended up 
>quite filthy, encrusted with soot. This had no obvious effect on 
>performance, but it sure made it messy to work on the antennas.
>
>Now that I own a house I prefer a through-roof mounted quad-pod for 
>the satellite antennas. It does a better job of supporting the mast, 
>and the azimuth rotor stays at the bottom. My chimney is only asked to 
>hold up a small VHF vertical.
>
>By the way, the antennas you describe may well be gross overkill for 
>Phase 3D.
>
>73  -Paul
>kb5mu@amsat.org
>
>
>----
>Via the amsat-bb mailing list at AMSAT.ORG courtesy of AMSAT-NA.
>To unsubscribe, send "unsubscribe amsat-bb" to Majordomo@amsat.org

___________________________________________________________________
Get the Internet just the way you want it.
Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month!
Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj.
----
Via the amsat-bb mailing list at AMSAT.ORG courtesy of AMSAT-NA.
To unsubscribe, send "unsubscribe amsat-bb" to Majordomo@amsat.org