Dish tripod
Has anyone used a survey tripod and modified to hold a satellite dish? If so what brand. They look like they might be more stable and not that much more in price.
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- The TV4RV unit is fine but I'm handy and cheap. For a little leg work, I made mine for about $50. And it is a Pentax.
- I found a used Pentax surveyors tripod on Ebay $40 shipped.
The cheap ones at Home Depot are ok.
I made an adapter with a 4" X 10" X 1/4" thick piece of aluminum.
Drilled a hole thru the mast mount of the dish, drilled two holes in the plate a little wider than the mast, put a bolt thru the mast then used two J bolts to mount it to the plate. Simple and solid.
Then I set the plate on the tripod and offset it until it was counter balanced and drilled a bigger hole (1/2"?) and put an eyebolt with a nut up thru the tripod hole thru the plate and use wing nut to fasten it.
The eyebolt enables you to bungee the tripod to the ground but I never do as the tripod is so stable it has never blown over. - I used one of these Winegard RD9046 Portable 18 Inch Satellite Dish Antenna when I was bringing along my SAT RCVR items a few years back...
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I could wind up all of the RG cables i was using around the base and also could hookup my dish pointer meter on the platform.
I always set mine on the hard bed cover of my truck so that I would stow it away when I left the area. These kind of things might wander off on you if no one is around..
When I did this it was only SD SAT TV so I used a two port DISH HEAD and run one RG cable to the living room area and the other RG cable to the bedroom area. Then hookup to my two SAt RCVRs I would bring along from my DIRECTV home account.
Did this for a few years until the National Broadcast came out with their digital HHDTV signals. Now we pick up digital HDTV signals from the local towns for free with ease using the BATWING TV Antenna. Don't bring along the SAT T items anymore...
Roy Ken - Did the adapter for the tripod ue the center bolt and add one other bolt to hold it straight? Could you please send a picture of the adapter.
Thanks - Yes, many have, this was standard with the HUGHESNET 2=Way Satellite Interenet Dishes... Very good tripod, Use "The Claw" to anchor it or use a 5 or 10 gallon water bottle.. Make sure the bottle is ON THE GROUND (contact with ground) so it does not sway in the wind.
Not sure of the brand they used but if you can find a HughesNet provider who deals with RV's... They can help.. Google: 2-way Satellite Internet RV and you should get lucky - I have a Johnson's tripod from Menards and its great for the Dish satellite because each leg is adjustable. I had a friend that owns a machine shop make an adapter the screws on the top and will accept the dish.
- Our $20 modified roof mount tripod has kept the signal stable in 50 MPH wind gusts with just a couple of dog tie outs for anchors.
