Thermal Connection

We live so far out in the country they have to pipe in sunshine. The only way we get anything approximating high speed internet is the snail's pace data satellite. The only way we get any TV at all is the video satellite.

Unfortunately, satellite dishes appear to be snow magnets. One good way we have of detecting snow without looking outside is that we lose internet and TV, usually within a half an hour of each other.

I've tried the old trash-bag radome idea and the hot water squirt gun idea and while they work marginally, the wind generally gets to the trash bag in a couple of hours and the hot water from the squirt gun gets translated into an ice sheet in about the same amount of time. Besides, the video dish is a good 25' vertical and 40' horizontal from where I have to stand to use the squirt gun.

I've thought about thermal epoxying a couple of low-value resistors to the back of the dish and heating them up but the thoughts about most of the heat going to warming up the breeze makes a thermal blanket over the outside of the resistor pretty mandatory. That seems to be a kludge.

Any thoughts appreciated. And no, Thompson, I'm not moving to Phoenix {;-)

Jim

Reply to
RST Engineering
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mount the bowl on a bearing a have it spin :p

if going for the heating idea, maybe some think like the selfregulation heating cable meant for keeping gutter and roofs ice free?

-Lasse

Reply to
langwadt

If the problem is snow buildup inside the concave reflector, could you stitch up a cloth cover? Even if you had to replace the cloth once a year, it'd be a lot less snow buildup onto a flat near-vertical surface of a taut bit of nylon.

I suppose a circular windshield wiper would be too gimmicky...

Reply to
whit3rd

You don't need to epoxy the resistors, just use some of those neat ali cased heatsink resistors on the back of the dish with something like cavity wall filling aerosol foam insulation spayed on afterwards, using a taped together cardboard former to hold it all together while the foam sets. Then just drill a few holes to drain the water away.

The more difficult problem might be temperature control, the power input required will vary considerably. An ice stat at one end and high temp cutoff at the other, with solid state relay might be the simplest solution...

Regards,

Chris

Reply to
ChrisQ

Your elevation angle should be low, so why not just a shed or a doghouse, with the dish pointing out the open end?

John

Reply to
John Larkin

How about mounting a vibrator to the disc to shake the snow off it?

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Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
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Reply to
Nico Coesel

Use those bolt-on power resistors, then get some spray-on foam insulation. Better if you can get a larger bowl and fill the space in between. ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

That sounds distinctly dodgy. Would most likely dither the picture as well :-)...

Regards,

Chris

Reply to
ChrisQ

Jim Thompson wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

or he could build a Lexan plastic radome for the dish,and leave an incandscent light bulb on underneath it. Maybe a plastic trash can would suffice for a radome.

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Jim Yanik
jyanik
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Reply to
Jim Yanik

Some ideas.....

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Cheers

Reply to
Martin Riddle

just turn in on now and then when the snow gets too much, beats getting outside with a broom ;)

-Lasse

Reply to
langwadt

Put more work into the radome.

RL

Reply to
legg

I had heard a story about 'Vibrators' and early Laser printer fusers. Seemed to do the trick.

Cheers

Reply to
Martin Riddle

Paint it black and hope the sun helps melt the snow?

Does that screw up the RF reflectivity?

George H.

Reply to
George Herold

From a vibrator to a broom, thats just sick!

Reply to
Dennis

We bought some vibrating sex toys, from the Good Vibrations store, to use on IC feeder tubes. They cost about $12, instead of the official feed tube vibrators that were $250 each. They worked, but the best feed tube vibrators eventually turned out to be AC-powered barber-supply units.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

two things...

I had a friend that built on a garage on his house in the mountains. he did his own roofing, to make sure that the nail spacing was loose enough not to block his satellite signal when he mounted his dish INSIDE the roof!

Of course, the professional thing to do is to get a heated radome, made of fiberglass and very thin resistive network inside. Usually two networks, so if one fails, you have a little while to repair it...

Charlie

Reply to
Charlie E.

Well, your idea of mounting resistors to the dish is a good start..use those in the metal power package with mounting "ears" along with thermal grease. That thermal blanket could be as el-cheapo as a garbage bag over everything.. If you do not like that, then use that spray-on foam urethane (nominally yellow. There is a foam insulator variant that is white,but that may be water soluble even when set.

Reply to
Robert Baer

They have made commercial heaters for sat dishes since the '70s. A cheaper method was to use pipe tape heaters made to keep water pipes from freezing. They have thermostats to turn them off, at around 35-40 degrees F. How hard can it be to find the right item for the job, or are you only planning on melting a few spots?

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You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a Band-Aid? on it, because it's
Teflon coated.
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

Boston Strangler!

=:-O Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

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