Technology is a hoot - when it works!
So, today's little adventure deals with technology, the monster which we've all become addicted to, and enslaved by. I'll try to keep it low key, so don't worry.
Wow, I wrote a whole page and when I read it back, it put me to sleep, here is the rewrite, hope it's better?
Dish TV put up a new satellite and basically our service here in MX, which wasn't actually "legal", is over, we can't receive the new satellite. So, I opted to go with the ShawDirect satellite service which is the Canuck equivalent - with variations of course, so let's jump to that point.
There was a Canuck sat system in the casita, so I opted to move it to the main house as my neighbor is in the great frozen North for the summer, swatting black flies and running bears out of her garden.
I hiked up on the roof, unbolted the dish, which is only about 3' X 2', and brought it over to the casa grande, clamped it on the railing outside the TV area and it worked. And BTW, the Canucks don't mind if you bring a receiver down here as long as you have a Canadian address? - yes I know, the way I live now I have more alias address's to make everything work than I've had real address's in my whole life - but this IS "the Great Adventure" isn't it?
Now, we arrive at the tricky part, the techie stuff because a dish antenna is infinitely adjustable so it can be mounted on any surface, flat, vertical, sloped etc and still be adjusted to "see" that tiny spot in the sky where the satellite is "parked". Normally you use a "Sat Trakker" meter to align the dish, but I've never had sat TV, so I don't have one. If you think about it, alignment must be exact, just moving it a tiny bit left or right, up or down etc. here on the ground means a difference of hundreds, if not thousands of miles in orbit, it's not like hanging a piece of wire out the back of your FM radio, it's more like the old rabbit ears days when you moved them and fiddled until it was just right. It just occurred to me we've come full circle back to fiddling with the rabbit ears to get the TV to work, but in this case, the "rabbit" is now on the roof.
Once I had it working on a temp basis I knew about where the dish should point, next it was time to study the programming available. TV is included in my rent so I emailed the owner in Taiwan and said "cancel Dish" and please back that amount out of my rent due, so I had some funds to play with and apply to the Canuck TV.
If you think the satellites and orbits and stuff is confusing, you should see the programming options for Canuck TV, aye Chihuahua. You instantly get a brain cramp just gazing at the different packages, there's Essentials, Digital Favorites, HD, Gold, Silver, Platinum, Ultimate packages, then sub groups, Real Life, Sports channels by the dozen (assuming curling is a sport?) and on and on and on. So, I began by mapping what I had on Dish starting with NASCAR as the top priority followed by "other stuff" and began comparing - and comparing - and I finally went to sleep (or lapsed into a coma) comparing.
The programming is very sophisticated and purposely complex to attempt to get the maximum $$$ out of you of course. But, one thing became immediately obvious, no matter what "packages" you choose, they WILL contain variants of; hockey, goose hunting, hockey, N woodsmanship?, hockey, movies featuring any of the 56 Baldwin brothers?, hockey, curling, French channels (the only subject I flunked in HS) and did I mention hockey? Then, you have your choice of the same network, but in different places, like ABC Rochester, ABC Detroit, ABC Spokane or just plain old ABC E? - oh, Lawrence Welk is still playing up there, ana one ana two!
The bottom line being that instead of getting NYC news/weather, I can now tell you what the high in Saskatoon was today, or the local news from Halifax (which is a guy sitting behind a desk, he says "and the news is" - and then a 15 minute silence because there is NO news, but they sold the commercial time so they have to broadcast something?) and the other night a flash flood alert appeared on screen for Lewana, or some such place? - I didn't know whether to worry or not?
If you've suffered through to this point, might as well read the rest!
The next step was to get the dish up on the roof in a final fixed position. I had carefully marked all the adjustment parts with a felt tipped marker so in case I needed to attempt a variation in alignment I could get back to where I started.
First, the casita sits directly N/S and the antenna base was aligned N/S - ah, but the casa grande is skewed a bit on the lot, so I had to make a template to compensate. Fortunately in MX they build mounting "pads" on the roofs assuming you will need them. I had been using this 12" X 2" X 18" high mount to strap the weather station mast and instruments onto, so this worked out well, I carefully measured, compensated for the skew on the lot and hooked everything up, temporarily set the dish in place, and went down the ladder to see if it was working - it was, so back up the ladder and I drilled 4 holes in the cement, bolted the dish down and went down to check out performance - there was NONE - NADA, no satellite acquisition? - must not have been "looking" in the right place, but I had been so careful? By this time I'm sure I had made a dozen trips up/down carrying tools, checking etc.
So, back up the ladder, move the dish, down the ladder, check signal strength, up the ladder, actually you're getting the short version because I lost track how many times I was up/down the ladder, my legs were counting, but I wasn't. Finally I had to drill 3 more holes in the concrete pad and got it moved and working, and actually pretty good with a signal strength of 24 on the TV. The sat receiver has a setup option which tells you how it's receiving. Now, if I had had a meter to take up on the roof - oh, never mind, and Max isn't real helpful with techie stuff, so it was done the old fashioned way, move the dish, down/check TV/up, "repeat as many time as necessary" - or until your legs go wobbly on you.
As a final adjustment before giving up for the day I noticed the weather instruments on the pole next to the dish were slightly off angle so I moved them, came down and retired for the day. Later in the evening I turned on NASCAR and scanned the channels I had set up and some weren't receiving, the signal strength was down to 11 from 24? What now?
The next morning early, before it got too hot, and after giving it some thought, I remembered I had moved, rotated, the metal mast next to the dish about 30 degrees because the anemometer wasn't facing due N, surely that couldn't make a difference, but nothing else had changed.
I got out the ladder again, turned on the TV and still 11 signal strength, so up the ladder and move something, climb down the ladder and check the TV, up the ladder and move something, down and check the TV. I was making a bit of progress and had it up to 17, but at that point nothing seemed to improve it further.
At this point I had been up/down the ladder easily 8 times and it was hardly past dawn and I decided to take a break and reconsider the wisdom of my approach to dish alignment. After a bit of heavy thinking, and another cup of coffee, I suddenly realized I was "thinking with my feet" and not my head. Here I have all this technology around me, and all over the compound, and I'm running up/down a ladder like a fool? - wow, that's really dumb - what an epiphany!
I headed for the bodega and got another ladder, went out to the front gate, take down one of the security cameras and brought it to the house, stuck it on a tripod looking at the TV, took the small wireless monitor back up on the roof and now I could "adjust" and "see" the instant results - now we're talking technology, making progress, and my feet/legs thanked me.
That was when it got interesting because moving the instruments around didn't have any effect beyond signal level 17. Then I started moving the dish, and that's like a toy you can bend into infinite shapes, but now I could move and check results, move and check results. When I started skewing the antenna it finally became apparent what had, and was happening. The dish needed to be angled slightly to the left and by loosening the 2 skew bolts that was possible. Then it came to me, late yesterday I was stepping up on the concrete mount to get to the weather instruments and must have bumped the dish slightly causing the misalignment.
After studying the dish for a time I decided that rather than try to figure out which bolts I should loosen to get that slight angle adjustment, a shim would be easier and sure enough, I tightened down the bolts while watching my little handheld monitor and it locked in at around 31 signal strength - like the oil commercial says "think with your head, not your dipstick".
So, it appears with a lot of work and time (I've got lots) spent, I now have a whole new world of Canuck TV to explore - and yes, the French channels are permanently blocked as are all 10-15 hockey channels, I do have the food channel programmed and I'm looking forward to learning how to cook moose, well you never know, one might wander by the compound down here and end up on the barby?
Wow, I wrote a whole page and when I read it back, it put me to sleep, here is the rewrite, hope it's better?
Dish TV put up a new satellite and basically our service here in MX, which wasn't actually "legal", is over, we can't receive the new satellite. So, I opted to go with the ShawDirect satellite service which is the Canuck equivalent - with variations of course, so let's jump to that point.
There was a Canuck sat system in the casita, so I opted to move it to the main house as my neighbor is in the great frozen North for the summer, swatting black flies and running bears out of her garden.
I hiked up on the roof, unbolted the dish, which is only about 3' X 2', and brought it over to the casa grande, clamped it on the railing outside the TV area and it worked. And BTW, the Canucks don't mind if you bring a receiver down here as long as you have a Canadian address? - yes I know, the way I live now I have more alias address's to make everything work than I've had real address's in my whole life - but this IS "the Great Adventure" isn't it?
Now, we arrive at the tricky part, the techie stuff because a dish antenna is infinitely adjustable so it can be mounted on any surface, flat, vertical, sloped etc and still be adjusted to "see" that tiny spot in the sky where the satellite is "parked". Normally you use a "Sat Trakker" meter to align the dish, but I've never had sat TV, so I don't have one. If you think about it, alignment must be exact, just moving it a tiny bit left or right, up or down etc. here on the ground means a difference of hundreds, if not thousands of miles in orbit, it's not like hanging a piece of wire out the back of your FM radio, it's more like the old rabbit ears days when you moved them and fiddled until it was just right. It just occurred to me we've come full circle back to fiddling with the rabbit ears to get the TV to work, but in this case, the "rabbit" is now on the roof.
Once I had it working on a temp basis I knew about where the dish should point, next it was time to study the programming available. TV is included in my rent so I emailed the owner in Taiwan and said "cancel Dish" and please back that amount out of my rent due, so I had some funds to play with and apply to the Canuck TV.
If you think the satellites and orbits and stuff is confusing, you should see the programming options for Canuck TV, aye Chihuahua. You instantly get a brain cramp just gazing at the different packages, there's Essentials, Digital Favorites, HD, Gold, Silver, Platinum, Ultimate packages, then sub groups, Real Life, Sports channels by the dozen (assuming curling is a sport?) and on and on and on. So, I began by mapping what I had on Dish starting with NASCAR as the top priority followed by "other stuff" and began comparing - and comparing - and I finally went to sleep (or lapsed into a coma) comparing.
The programming is very sophisticated and purposely complex to attempt to get the maximum $$$ out of you of course. But, one thing became immediately obvious, no matter what "packages" you choose, they WILL contain variants of; hockey, goose hunting, hockey, N woodsmanship?, hockey, movies featuring any of the 56 Baldwin brothers?, hockey, curling, French channels (the only subject I flunked in HS) and did I mention hockey? Then, you have your choice of the same network, but in different places, like ABC Rochester, ABC Detroit, ABC Spokane or just plain old ABC E? - oh, Lawrence Welk is still playing up there, ana one ana two!
The bottom line being that instead of getting NYC news/weather, I can now tell you what the high in Saskatoon was today, or the local news from Halifax (which is a guy sitting behind a desk, he says "and the news is" - and then a 15 minute silence because there is NO news, but they sold the commercial time so they have to broadcast something?) and the other night a flash flood alert appeared on screen for Lewana, or some such place? - I didn't know whether to worry or not?
If you've suffered through to this point, might as well read the rest!
The next step was to get the dish up on the roof in a final fixed position. I had carefully marked all the adjustment parts with a felt tipped marker so in case I needed to attempt a variation in alignment I could get back to where I started.
First, the casita sits directly N/S and the antenna base was aligned N/S - ah, but the casa grande is skewed a bit on the lot, so I had to make a template to compensate. Fortunately in MX they build mounting "pads" on the roofs assuming you will need them. I had been using this 12" X 2" X 18" high mount to strap the weather station mast and instruments onto, so this worked out well, I carefully measured, compensated for the skew on the lot and hooked everything up, temporarily set the dish in place, and went down the ladder to see if it was working - it was, so back up the ladder and I drilled 4 holes in the cement, bolted the dish down and went down to check out performance - there was NONE - NADA, no satellite acquisition? - must not have been "looking" in the right place, but I had been so careful? By this time I'm sure I had made a dozen trips up/down carrying tools, checking etc.
So, back up the ladder, move the dish, down the ladder, check signal strength, up the ladder, actually you're getting the short version because I lost track how many times I was up/down the ladder, my legs were counting, but I wasn't. Finally I had to drill 3 more holes in the concrete pad and got it moved and working, and actually pretty good with a signal strength of 24 on the TV. The sat receiver has a setup option which tells you how it's receiving. Now, if I had had a meter to take up on the roof - oh, never mind, and Max isn't real helpful with techie stuff, so it was done the old fashioned way, move the dish, down/check TV/up, "repeat as many time as necessary" - or until your legs go wobbly on you.
As a final adjustment before giving up for the day I noticed the weather instruments on the pole next to the dish were slightly off angle so I moved them, came down and retired for the day. Later in the evening I turned on NASCAR and scanned the channels I had set up and some weren't receiving, the signal strength was down to 11 from 24? What now?
The next morning early, before it got too hot, and after giving it some thought, I remembered I had moved, rotated, the metal mast next to the dish about 30 degrees because the anemometer wasn't facing due N, surely that couldn't make a difference, but nothing else had changed.
I got out the ladder again, turned on the TV and still 11 signal strength, so up the ladder and move something, climb down the ladder and check the TV, up the ladder and move something, down and check the TV. I was making a bit of progress and had it up to 17, but at that point nothing seemed to improve it further.
At this point I had been up/down the ladder easily 8 times and it was hardly past dawn and I decided to take a break and reconsider the wisdom of my approach to dish alignment. After a bit of heavy thinking, and another cup of coffee, I suddenly realized I was "thinking with my feet" and not my head. Here I have all this technology around me, and all over the compound, and I'm running up/down a ladder like a fool? - wow, that's really dumb - what an epiphany!
I headed for the bodega and got another ladder, went out to the front gate, take down one of the security cameras and brought it to the house, stuck it on a tripod looking at the TV, took the small wireless monitor back up on the roof and now I could "adjust" and "see" the instant results - now we're talking technology, making progress, and my feet/legs thanked me.
That was when it got interesting because moving the instruments around didn't have any effect beyond signal level 17. Then I started moving the dish, and that's like a toy you can bend into infinite shapes, but now I could move and check results, move and check results. When I started skewing the antenna it finally became apparent what had, and was happening. The dish needed to be angled slightly to the left and by loosening the 2 skew bolts that was possible. Then it came to me, late yesterday I was stepping up on the concrete mount to get to the weather instruments and must have bumped the dish slightly causing the misalignment.
After studying the dish for a time I decided that rather than try to figure out which bolts I should loosen to get that slight angle adjustment, a shim would be easier and sure enough, I tightened down the bolts while watching my little handheld monitor and it locked in at around 31 signal strength - like the oil commercial says "think with your head, not your dipstick".
So, it appears with a lot of work and time (I've got lots) spent, I now have a whole new world of Canuck TV to explore - and yes, the French channels are permanently blocked as are all 10-15 hockey channels, I do have the food channel programmed and I'm looking forward to learning how to cook moose, well you never know, one might wander by the compound down here and end up on the barby?
Comments