Worst week ever trying to catch NASA data with a homemade dish

Spent all last week tweaking my 8 foot mesh dish to grab some weather satellite passes. Got the LNB angle perfect on Tuesday, then a storm rolled in Wednesday and threw everything off by like 2 degrees. Spent Thursday recalibrating with a signal meter I got off eBay for $30. Finally locked into a NOAA bird on Friday morning, and then my dog ran into the feedhorn cable and snapped the connector clean off. Has anyone else had a run of bad luck like this where everything lines up and then one dumb thing ruins it?

3 comments

3 Comments

kimfisher28d agoMost Upvoted

Did you mean a NOAA satellite instead of a bird?

max22328d ago

Birds are just as likely to chew through coax as satellites are to drift off frequency. The real hot take is that both are valid hazards in this hobby. You learn to keep spare connectors and a crimp tool on hand after the first time something bites through your feedline. Doesn't matter if it's a cat or a squirrel or atmospheric interference, the result is the same. Dead air and a long wait for parts.

reese_hayes7128d ago

Man oh man, that dog story hurts... I had a cat once decide my coax cable was a toy and chewed it right in half. Got the whole setup dialed in for a GOES pass and then nothing but static. Had to wait a week for a new connector to ship from Amazon. The worst part is you know it's not even the satellite's fault, it's just dumb life stuff getting in the way.