A Little Windy Last Night!

[catthepatch]

Guess it got a little windy last night. My 10' Unimesh was leaning over with a broken polar mount this morning. Guess the little movement from the pin breaking in the concrete last year was enough to fatigue the metal. Walked by it a couple times this morning doing other things before I even noticed the damage.

[catthepatch]

Was wanting to redo the mount this year, guess I'll have to now. Off to the welding shop this week with the mount, hopefully it can be repaired. Now I can dig up the pole and redo the pins so it won't twist anymore. Will have to get some more quickcrete as well.

[rrob311]

How much time do you have before the ground freezes up that way?

[catthepatch]

Still waiting on first frost, which should be in no time. Freeze up won't happen for a while yet. I can get the pole R & R'ed a soon as I dig it up, tap some anti-twist bolts and get some bags of concrete. Fixing the polar mount may take some fancy welding and straightening. Got it all down and torn apart today, here are some more pics of the damage.

[el bandido]

At least you are resourceful enough to fix it! Most of us would have to trash it and look for something else.

[catthepatch]

Picked up my repaired polar mount yesterday, $60. Built a Gin Pole today, strapped it to the pole and lifted my 10' dish back into place. Had to do a few mods on the run as the pulley was too low, only a 50km wind, so I had to move the gin pole around a bit. Finally got SatMex6 to come in and had to shut down as it got dark. Will get the rest buttoned up tomorrow. Was interesting being by myself doing this.

Happy Testing!!!