Ken, you are right, that was here. However I think need to distinguish the wifi and ethernet ports in case of status reporting, I can imagine it’s kinda “sensitive” that which one is used.
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I think there is value in supporting PoE in reporting status to the cloud because it makes my RG-6 run between the LNA and the DC less than 3 feet. The long run between the DC and my girlfriend’s house is easily accommodated in the 328ft Ethernet distance limitation.
RG-6 is relatively very lossy. It’s an interesting trade-off between Ken’s solution of having a dish and 500ft of RG-6 versus my case of having only a cone, 3ft of RG6 and a run of Ethernet.
There are lots of people with WiFi video surveillance in her neighborhood. Although video only consumes one channel, the traffic load on the channel is nearly 100%. When half the neighborhood is doing this, WiFi becomes somewhat unreliable.
I agree with @kenbarbi that the report from the DC to the cloud, should include the LAN connection type. This can help in narrowing-down problems.
–Konrad, WA4OSH
I’m on my 500 feet of RG6 in the house from my FTA LNB/dish. All’s well - - I made some more cones today that I will try tomorrow to see what I can improve with a naked LNB at the base of the LNB. Ken
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Shopping around on ebay I found these antenna solutions.
Option 1: 18 Dish, mount, lnb that fits---- cost shipped to us address ~ $45
https://www.ebay.com/itm/261776125143
Option 2. if you can find a old dish. just order up the lnb, even though it is not PLL, it works
James,
You certainly can adapt a dish to the Standard type LNBs. You may need to buy a mount for it and drill a new hole on the arm after locating the focus of the dish.
Some LNBs, such as the ones for Dish Network and DirecTV are circular polarization. I’ve not tried it yet.
–Konrad, WA4OSH
I will measure it later tonight. I got it from Goodwill for a couple of bucks. They seem to have quite a few. This one was appealing due to the constant taper of the walls. It looks the most like a good waveguide horn. But I don’t have a microwave VNA to make the judgement on that.
–Konrad, WA4OSH
@maxboysdad
Martini shaker is 3 3/4in diameter, 6 1/2in long.
I have to find a better way to connect the martini shaker to the LNB. The wind blows it around.
–Konrad, WA4OSH
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@Konrad_Roeder
Thank you. I am making a .019 thickness aluminum cone based on the 12-oz drink cup. It is cut out, but not rolled yet, will be 8" long when it is finished. I will post a picture when it is ready.
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I lost the satellite tonight at about 7PM MDT and can’t seem to find it at all now. Checked the LNB bias voltage and it is present. This is very strange…
here is my log — system messages — nothing arriving
satsignature.com still shows a carrier at their los angeles monitoring station
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It should be working again. We were running an experiment, and it took longer than planned.
All is well, I’m receiving just fine now, Thanks,
Jim, thanks for the log. I can see the birdie again this morning. Last night I thought I had somehow killed my DreamCatcher, but the DC indicated that it was running and Skylark 5.1 connected to the WiFi network just fine. There just wasn’t any indication of a signal when I turned it back on after I had shut down the DC to install a feed horn shield. I had not disconnected nor moved the LNB or cabling. I spent the next two hours troubleshooting, to no avail.
Would it be possible for you gentlemen who put all this hard work together to consider a short “heads up” Hello Outernet message to at least those of us who have reporting units that show on the “Outernet Status Dashboard” (the count is usually six to nine of us) when you do testing such as this? We are all in this together, and it could save a good deal of anxiety. Thank you.
My apologies. I was doing the testing and ran way over the time I expected. Will definitely give notice next time.
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Below is the picture set from the 8-inch cone. It doesn’t look like a cone in the picture due to the angle of the picture, but it is 2-1/2" at the narrow end and 3-1/2 inches at the wide end, pattern expanded from the 12-oz soft-drink cup. The shield is cut from .019" aluminum sheet. It is open end-to-end, and tail tabs were designed to easily slide into my conduit-clamp LNB mount and secure by bending slightly. One of the two tabs was made deliberately crooked to offset the weight balance on this loose mounting scheme. It is raining today, but the rain just passes all the way through, no problem. I saw a 3 to 3.5 dB improvement over the naked LNB with this shield this morning in spite of the rain.
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I am trying to copy what you have – my parts list
I think the lnbf is 40 mm diameter ~= the od of 1 1/4 pvc shed 40 = 1.66"
A clamp $1.86
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Cramik-Enterprises-1-1-4-in-Galvanized-Split-Ring-Pipe-Hanger-20005/100167195
sheet aluminum 6 x 18 $4.47
https://www.homedepot.com/p/M-D-Building-Products-6-in-x-18-in-Plain-Aluminum-Sheet-in-Silver-56080/205058552?MERCH=REC-_-PIPHorizontal2_rr-_-100351161-_-100293264-_-N
thread rod to support 1/4" x 24" $1.47
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-1-4-in-x-24-in-Zinc-Threaded-Rod-802147/204274009
update following comments below — a 12" x 12" aluminum similar to above listing $7.47
Hi Jim @ac8dg, the sheet needs to be 12" to be wide enough if you are starting with the 12-0z soft drink container. It isn’t cheap. The conduit hanger clamps are 1-1/4 inch, correct, it can be opened enough to get the 40mm LNBF into it) and I just used 1/4-24 bolt to mount on the 3/4" PVC pre-formed “sweep” L.
it would be great to see a good wave guide found or created and made so it could be mass produced and sold with the antenna normally
I can understand why that could be good for those of us who live in the city in Aus, US or UK. The main problem with providing the shield and mountings with the LNBF are that many times a person is not going to have a lot of “package room” to carry such things into a remote place… Think of a place such as Tajikistan or the Phliippines, where in a lot of areas, very little or no internet is available, roads are few, but a lot of needy people could benefit from Outernet’s offerings. Whatever resources are available may have to do. This is why we are experimenting with old tin cans and trying various solutions that may seem unorthodox at the present. My cone shaped shield is to satisfy my curiosity and perhaps that of several others, however, I need all the time to keep in mind the original intent of this project, and continue to work toward that end with materials that may be similar to what would be available in that remote place… Just my "2¢ worth…
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correct if we can make them cost effective via a way to send them with the antenna so then it would be better in some methods also or to research if another amplifier would solve the issue without all of this fuss