5.03.2022 Finally taking the 2.2m dish down.

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 Saturday 5th March 2022. The end of another era and eight years since my last post here. I finally took the unused 2.2m dish down. Once Astra 2 became too weak to receive anything useful the dish had just been making the garden look even more untidy than usual. There is little incentive to keep things tidy. As old age and complete, rural detachment take their toll.

 Fortunately I had carefully chosen a dish mounting site. Where it was invisible outside our rural garden but could still see the satellite in the sky. I had even turned the dish on its post occasionally. To avoid catching the worst of the wind during storm alerts. Though a vast, conifer hedge had also helped to protect it over the long years.

 The dish had gradually discoloured with moss and lichen over time. Which did not make it any more attractive. Nor had toned it down much. Not compared to when I manually buffed the finish to brightness on first arrival. I used fiber faced, dish washing, scouring pads and bathroom, abrasive cleaning fluid. Gentle but effective given enough time and effort. I didn't want to expose the aluminium. Just clean the top surface of the special finish.

 Forward to today and I removed the LNB arms. Using a brand new Bahco plumbers wrench to hold the arm tubes still. While I unscrewed the stainless steel, hollow, fixing bolts with a socket wrench. These bolts had always been immovably fixed by a chalky thread locker. The manufacturers obviously didn't want their dishes blowing off the vast, lattice towers. Which still dot the Danish landscape. A distant memory from local, cable TV. Many Danish villages would have a mast and an Antenna Club back then.

 Rather optimistically, I had repeatedly sprayed these errant bolts with penetrating oil over the years. This time the bolts actually came undone. With the help of the sharply toothed pipe wrench. Further aided by a 2' /60cm length of steel pipe. Used as a lever on the socket head bar. Without the feed arms I had much better access to the dish for lifting it down. Not to mention much easier storage.

 Then I used my familiar builders folding stepladders as a crane. The ladder's long, steady bars were firmly lashed together with rope at the top. Then used to support a cheap, chain hoist. The picture [left] was taken back when I was first erecting the dish on a steel post. Which was sunk into a meter of concrete. It would be suicidal to use normal ladders this way. The stability bars at both ends are absolutely essential.

 The feed arms would not come off back then. So I had to work carefully around them. The steel post can be seen to the left, hiding behind the dish. It's fresh, concrete base still wrapped in polythene. To stop it drying out too quickly in a heat wave.

 Yet again I bridged the rear dish's reinforcing frame with multiple loops of rope. Then hooked the hoist around that. Taking the weight of the dish on the hoist allowed me to remove the altitude pivot bolts. The dish was then let gently down to the ground while still upright. 

 There followed a struggle to roll the heavy dish, on its reinforced edge. To a secluded spot in our rural garden. To finally come to rest against yet another, overgrown hedge. Where I added the 1.8m and 2.2m dishes to the stack. [Top picture] 

 A tall, dense, wild hedge ensures they will remain completely invisible from outside the garden. Such large, round objects can be seen for miles against a green, rural background. Cheap tarpaulins will soon die of exposure. So that isn't a suitable option for achieving invisibility.

 At this stage I am really not sure whether to advertise the dishes for sale. They won't deteriorate. So will come to no harm until I am long gone. They no longer owe me anything in monetary terms. I am very unlikely to get much for the dishes. Which makes visits by strangers a security and possible heath risk for little reward. [Covid]

 I had great fun playing with all of my dishes, in their day. Even if,  in the end, it was all for nothing. Netflix eventually replaced our standard, British TV fare. Making the struggle to receive the patchy Astra 2 signal completely pointless. Ironically it was my wife who liked British TV. I was never much of a TV watcher. 

 Netflix hasn't improved much over the years. Though that may just be our being located in Denmark. Does the content vary by region? Long weeks pass without anything we really want to watch. Usually when our favourite series are endlessly promised new seasons.  Which only leaves us with YouTube. Which has immensely variable content but is utterly spoilt by cluster bomb advertising. That's a commercial dictatorship by sociopaths for you.

 I have been downsizing and clearing decades of accumulated "stuff" recently. The big dish was just one more hurdle [or burden] to remove. I have carefully detailed how even a 75-year-old can manage such tasks in relative safety. Just in case it helps. 

 Don't blame me if you hurt yourself while trying to copy my methods. I obviously can't be there to supervise. I strongly suggest you have at least one other, strong adult to help you. Never work with a big dish in windy conditions. They act as a sail. Generating tremendous lift at some inclinations to the wind. You have been warned! I chose a day of dead calm in a very sheltered garden. Mounting such a dish on a post requires a very sturdy steel post/pipe and lots of concrete in the ground! Do your homework before even considering the task.

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