Installing Satellite antennas on a budget?

[Harry Mueller]

Greetings All!

I’m looking for some guidance on how to erect a satellite antenna and az/el rotator in a way that will be effective and not too costly. My wife is not at the point where she will accept the idea or cost of a tower of any kind even if I could get the HOA to approve it so I am looking at less than ideal options.

My goal is to install an az/el rotator with the M2 LEO pack such that it is above the roofline of my house, roughly 30′, and secure enough to last a year or two until a better solution is in the budget.

My current, and probably bad idea, is to install the rotator and antenna on the top of a 36′ Rohn telescoping mast secured to the side of the house with wall mount brackets and using the Rohn telescopic mast ground mount.

I understand that this would be a less than ideal installation but have to work within a budget, HOA rules, and maintain harmony at home.

Alternately I could install my existing M2 eggbeaters on the top of the same telescoping mast with the understanding that there would be significant loss of effectiveness. The eggbeaters are pretty terrible right now but I can’t get them above the peak of the roof so I don’t have clear line of sight in any direction so I’m not surprised.

Anybody have any advice?

–Harry, W1HMM

URLs for major components:

Rohn H40 36.25′ telescoping mast  https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/roh-h40

Rohn telescoping mast ground mount https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/roh-gtmbl

Mast wall mounts

https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/roh-wm4

Yaesu G-5500 AzEl rotator

https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/ysu-g-5500

M2 LEO Pack satellite antenna

https://www.m2inc.com/FGLEOPACK

[Fred Kemmerer]

[caption id="attachment_26313" align="alignnone" width="512"] LEO Pack Satellite Antennas[/caption]

Hello Harry,

Sounds like an interesting project! A couple of initial thoughts. First, it will be critical that the top of the mast where the rotator is mounted is solid and completely stable. This is achievable if the mast is secured to the building very near the top where the rotator will go. Satellite signals will not penetrate buildings very well so you’ll want the top of the mast to be a little above the roof plane on the building.

I think that the Yaesu rotator is a little light for this sort of mounting and I’d recommend that you take a look at the Alfa-Spid Az/El instead. It’s designed to be mounted on a mast and its housing is not prone to breakage which can be the case with the Yaesu.

The LEO pack is a great choice for use with satellites. You can get a discount on these antennas if you join AMSAT. More on AMSAT here.

You’ll want to use computer control for a setup like this. You can read a series of articles on how to do this starting here.

Our Field Day 2019 satellite station will be using a LEO pack antenna system. If you are coming out to Field Day, I can spend some time with you to operate satellites then.

I’d be happy to spend some time with you to talk about satellite station building and operating. See me at a meeting or email me at [email protected].

Good luck with your project!

[Author]

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