How scared should I be to install the folding LNB arm kit?

[remoandiris]

Drilling and cutting the arm makes me a little nervous.  If I dork it up and can't find another arm, I have to buy an entire dish setup.   

[Chad Heiser]

I modified an existing dish a while back to make the arm capable of folding.  It was actually quite easy.  The arms are just riveted to the mount on the dish.  I drilled out the (4 if I remember correctly) rivets holding the arm on and found the right sized bolts with some wing nuts to replace them.  The bolts (two of them) were long enough to be inserted on one side and pass all the way through the arm assembly and come out the other side where I could attach the wing nuts.  When installing the bolts, I did have to fish them past the coax cables inside the arm, but that was easy enough.  I could then remove one bolt and allow the other to act as a hinge for folding or remove both of them and store the dish in two pieces (which was what I usually did because it was less bulky.)  The whole modification only took a few minutes and worked quite well until I finally switched over to an automated dish and gave the modified one away.

[Darryl&Rita]

Sounds about like what I did to ours, Chad. The rivets were closer to press marks in the steel, where the 2 pieces were pressed together. This also made it easy to drill the holes. I think I drilled the holes before trying to take the pieces apart, replacing each press-point with a bolt and wing nut.

[packnrat]

i do not know this adjustment.

but i do have a dish on thr roof of my house ( there when i bought the place) is any parts here you can use. your welcome to them.

east northern ca.

[Mark and Dale Bruss]

When we carry the tripod dish inside the motorhome, I just remove the arm from the reflector.  No worry about misalignment of the arm.  I did change out the hex nuts with 1/4" T-Knob nuts to facilitate  the removal and assembly.

[remoandiris]

I contacted the retailer that installed my system.  They sold me an arm for $15.  I should have just ordered the folding arm (not just the kit, the whole arm) from TV4RV.  At least now I have a spare to cut.

[Mark and Dale Bruss]

The reason we did not go with the folding arm is that the dish, with the arm folded would have been too high for the space we had in the motorhome.  The arm fits nicely next to the reflector in the space.

[Dutch_12078]

For moves between sites, I just pop the assembled dish off the tripod and stow both in the back of the toad. The arm nestles nicely between the rear seats in our SUV. About the only time I break the dish down to stow it in a bin is when we hook up at our NY cottage and connect to the permanent dish there. Then, all I do is pop the reflector off the mount by removing four 1/4" plastic handled nuts and carriage bolts, and then stow the mount, arm, and LNB as a unit along side the reflector. 

[Mark and Dale Bruss]

Since we try to use the Winegard Trav'ler as much as reasonable, the tripod dish only comes out when we have a tree obstruction for the WA or when we are using the EA.  When in the EA area and from site to site we will be using the tripod, then I carry the assembled dish in the back of the Equinox.

[SWharton]

We installed the folding arm years ago, no problem. We carry our dish on the ladder. Bought a holder from TV4RV and it works great.

[Mark and Dale Bruss]

Lucky you got the ladder holder when you did. No longer available when we got the Bounder, so we disassemble.

[remoandiris]

Got it done.  Tomorrow, after Dish is done recording shows for a while, I'm going to diddle with the SF-95 and then install the folding arm.  

[richfaa]

Follow the instructions and there will be no problem.

 

[remoandiris]

Well crap, that didn't work.  Going to call the retailer tomorrow and see if the installer can come back out and find the problem.  If nothing else, I'll put the solid arm back on and find a spot for the dish/arm on the 5er bed when traveling.  I'll let it snuggle between a few pillows.