Part two of the construction - assembling the support frame
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| The frame is basically
done, and needs only a vertical post that is securely anchored at the
center point.
I used the crossbeam that holds the frame in the proper shape as the support for the dish mount. |
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| A piece of thick aluminum
sheet metal was bent into the shape of a bracket and bolted onto the
frame.
This steel pipe is the original mounting post for the satellite dish, but I had one small problem to overcome. The physical "yoke" or pivot that a dish is normally mounted on that would allow rotation in all directions was not present, so I had to come up with something that would work as I needed. |
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| To be useful, a satellite
dish must have some sort of frame or mount. This dish indeed had a
rectangular "cross" frame, but there was no pivot or yoke.
I used some scrap aluminum channel and threaded rod to come up with a very simple pivot. With the dish in place, I tested the movement and stability of the frame. Everything worked exactly as desired. The next steps would be to create the mirror from the satellite dish, a step that was a little challenging at first, but turned out to have a very simple solution. |
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| Here is a close up view of
the mount. It is made of three pieces of aluminum channel stock and
braces with some aluminum strip.
The threaded rod which acts as the "axle" was later cut short and the ends dressed properly. |
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