Long before I bought the decent large dishes, I bought a 2.4m Fortec. I finally got around to assembling it and now it's time to come out and admit to what I have done. The one I got had been damaged in transit and had kinks on one edge of most petals and a slight dents in the middle of a couple. I straightened the kinks by compressing the edges between blocks of wood but left the dents. Thanks to aceb for your notes.
Putting the dish together took a few hours:
All fixings were replaced by stainless ones and I used copper grease when assembling.
The ribs that hold the petals to the ring were not at 90 degrees to the ring fixing so they had to be corrected. I sprayed Waxoil inside the ring and all the tubes.
I built the frame and mount first
With the ring set so that the dish would be pointing at the horizon, I attached the first 2 petals. I then moved it to the "bird bath" position to do the rest. When adding petals, I found it easier to use a couple of extra long bolts and the drift to locate the petal (see drift_53.jpg). I then added the fixing bolts. Using a drift,it was reasonably easy to align the panels. Once together, I tweaked the alignment a bit but it was not too bad to start with. I haven't tried it yet as the weather hasn't been great.
OK, so the metal will probably decay faster than the pallet but for less than the price of an AV-Comm polariser etc you could get a C Band starter kit which will not need planning permission.
Dish £Free-£180 (mine was £100, new but mangled)
Cheap LNBF e.g. Titanium Lite £18
Castors £15
Pallet £Free
The stainless fixings were about £25 extra
I'll make sure I tie it down if I leave it outside as it probably will not make a very controllable land yacht. Once it have it running I will report again.
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