Nothing like trying something new for the first time…

We had ordered several satellite dishes for various purposes. My assistant had decided that he wanted to tackle putting one of them together and aiming it. He had never assembled one of these dishes or aimed one before so I told him to go for it.

Reid assembles the base of one of the dishes at Pilot Hill

He spent part of yesterday unpacking one of the dishes and getting the mount put together. I went out to the warehouse with him this afternoon where he was assembling the dish.

After placing the dish on the mount and aligning the feedhorn it was finally together and ready to aim. The feed assembly was pretty flimsy and the documentation was poor but we finally managed to get it all put together.

I gave my assistant the coordinates for pointing the dish. He pointed it. I looked at the receiver and spectrum analyzer. Much to my amazement we had a perfect signal on the receiver and a great looking trace on the spectrum analyzer! I told him…”That’s PERFECT! How did you get it DEAD ON the FIRST TIME?” He said “Luck?” We laughed and then called it an afternoon.

Can’t argue with success!