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When installing a satellite dish, one of the most difficult problems is determining where to place the dish. If the dish is placed in the wrong spot, you will receive no signal due to trees or buildings blocking the signal. You could purchase a special SITE SURVEY tool but they cost about $200 dollars! I built my own site-survey tool, and am quite happy with it. I built several other site survey tools, but they were too large or required LEVELING. This one uses GRAVITY to hold a string vertical as a reference point... instead of a leveling bubble. So it is much easier to use and more compact than others i have built. It is also "all-in-one" rather than a separate COMPASS and INCLINOMETER. Once you get the parts ready, gluing it together only takes about an hour. Once completed, you can look right down the waterpipe to the "exact" spot in the sky where the satellite is located! So let's get started with the build.
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Signing UpStep 1PARTS NEEDED.
1 compass that has degree markings zero to 360. and a sighting glass.
1 childs protractor. Mine was same size as a computer CD. Lucky me.
1 half-inch plastic PVC pipe. cut into 3 pieces. Length is not real critical. I used a piece
12 inches long, another one 6.5 inches, and a third one about 1.5 inches.
1 end-cap for pvc
1 plastic "tee" fitting
2 pvc "splice" fittings
Some string
1 cotter pin
5 or 6 inches of solder to wrap around the cotter pin.
a hot-glue gun and 3 or 4 glue sticks
a piece of sandpaper to sand off the lettering on the pvc pipes.
I assembled the unit using GLUE rather than screws because metal screws may be magnetic and would upset the accuracy of the compass. If you use any metal near the compass, be sure you use BRASS screws as they are not magnetic.
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I like it, way to go not-spending!
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Hay!
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