Beaconsfield Upper

Our initial scout of this location had filled me with some trepidation. The owner wouldn't hear of defeat, but they'd be in South America when I needed to be on-line, so their level of concern was not quite the same as mine. Basically there were large trees between us and the satellite, but some gaps did exist and some planning was in order.

I improved the method used to construct the frame, this time bolting the three shorts together whilst it was on the ground, then attaching the centre beam and post. I did need to move the whole frame a few meters sideways to clear a tree after set-up, but apart from that, the whole thing is becoming routine.

The electronics boxes were mounted prior to the dish install, which required some fancy jiggling later on and an improvement was made at Bishop's Creek. We again used the dainty tarp to protect the electronics and left the dish to the elements. I made a concession by covering the feed horn with a rubbish bag.

Clean-up was swift and simple. The dish without the electronics boxes was much easier to handle for the two of us and it looks like it may stay separate from now on. Of course everything is lighter once you've lifted 160kg between two of you, now it's only 100kg :-)

Holwell

We arrived at our new location only to find that the only location for any chance of a successful setup was on the side of a hill, overlooking a house. The frame comes with wheels, which were removed because I felt they would only hinder the process of actually putting the frame together in any meaningful or secure way. Besides, I felt that the stand-offs wouldn't be able to lift them clear off the ground either.

Unpacking was interesting because everything was on an angle and you needed to be very careful about dropping things or having things come out of drawers assisted by gravity.

I decided that the frame idea, separation of the frame and the dish was not going to work and I unbolted the red boxes from their home underneath the dish. Instead I bolted them together and with some wire cable I attached them hanging from the mount post.

The tarpaulin was minimised and only covered the red electronics in a dainty little cover, rather than the huge tarp we had used until then. A big concern was that the location was very windy and I even used chain and pickets to secure the dish, double pegging both chains.

After all the stress about the location, the actual setup was simple. I pointed the dish roughly and 15 minutes later we were online, tuned and cross-polled and all!

Packing up was slightly different. I'd determined that the frame would fit in a different location in the van, against the firewall, rather than in the back, making the weight distribution more even between the wheels. This freed up space in the back, so the red boxes now fit, bolted together behind the rear wheel.

Bamera

Second time around at the Station in Barmera. This time I set it up closer to the Station itself, so it had more protection from the wind. We had help unloading the beast this time, so Frances and I could rest easier, but it was still pretty stressful trying to determine if anything had been permanently damaged.

We started experimenting more with the covering of the dish. In an attempt to stream line the cover we actually setup the dish and then lifted up the mount and slid the tarpaulin underneath the feet. The only result was that it was harder to remove the tarp when we had to pack up.

When we did pack up, Frances and I were alone again, and instead of repeating the dropping disaster at Kangaroo Valley, I decided to try to see if it would be simpler to just remove the fibreglass from the frame, rather than keep it all together.

So, I unbolted the fibreglass and we loaded it into the van. That was pretty simple. Now the only problem was, what do we do with the rest? We tied it down to the side of the van and crossed our fingers. I didn't like it for many reasons, the chief one being that it was tied up overhanging the dish and if the ties or the tie points failed, all hell would break loose.

Luckily they didn't fail.

Kangaroo Valley

Driving through the mountain on our approach to our new location I could not help but be fearful of the accuracy of the reporting that came from our hosts who lived on the side of a mountain. It transpired that there was no need, but I will admit that driving a van like ours up the side of a mountain up a road that was as wide as the van in first gear was an experience.

We set the dish up next to the house, and at 45° we basically went over the top of the garden arch and the next mountain across the valley without any difficulty. Again we used the trusty Ethernet cable to link up and a connection was made within two hours of arriving.

The dish saw lots of action as a base for some travelling friends of ours who used the broadband connection to update their web-site and upload packet loads of photos of their travels around the country.

During our stay we also experimented some with the tarpaulin that covered the dish because there was some pretty hard rain and wind around. Because we stayed in the same spot for a while, the grass got pretty high underneath and we tried to find ways to drain water from below the dish. On one occasion I was underneath the tarpaulin when I thumped my head against the elevation bolt - the big long one you can see on many of the photos here - I stood up and thump. I saw stars and had a headache for several hours, but the dish was fine...

During loading of the dish, Frances and I were left to lift it on our own for the first time and we dropped it. Well, it sort of slid sideways and left a big crack in the side of the dish. Neither of us was hurt, but we were both pretty upset for a few days.

Seems the dish is pretty robust, because it never even seemed to notice the crack.

Bamera

Windy Barmera caused some stir when we installed our trusty connection, because we set it up in the court-yard of the old train station. We visited the home of the last station master and he took great interest in the goings on next to his old platform.

The technology worked just fine, we didn't use a wireless link, I cannot recall why, but ran the 80m Ethernet cable that we constructed in Crossing Falls for the first time in a non-troubleshooting role.

Setup was uneventful and our hosts took great delight in explaining to their friends that we carried the dish around to watch TV - seeing as they had one on their roof too and that's what they used theirs for. We decided that it was a little too complicated to explain that we didn't use it for TV.

Middle of Nowhere

The most memorable because of its location.

Initially the plan was to camp in Woomera, but the team changed their mind and decided to camp on the side of the road where the car stopped. Fortunately it was flat, as far as the eye could see.

By this stage the team was experienced and most of the work was completed with little effort on my part. Tuning was simple and we were on-line within an hour of arrival. The German Team also camped at the same location and shared our on-line experience.

Frances took a photo that made it to the Melbourne Herald Sun.

Coober Pedy

Living underground is interesting, but it makes for exciting conversations on your mobile phone.

Our worst race fears all happened together. First of all, we setup away from the road in a nice quiet corner of the motel. There were no obstacles, but there was a power line overhead. After trying to tune for an hour, we moved the dish and found a signal straight away. Turns out that power lines are not good for satellite signals.

So, then we were tuned and switching on the modem gave us similar symptoms to those seen in Crossing Falls and an urgent call was made to the BOC.

Seeing as I had received email every night without notification of any updates, I didn't expect that again Optus had made a change without a notification. (Not even to the BOC apparently.)

So, with me inside on the computer, an Ethernet cable running 50 meters to the dish and one of the Sungroper Team members standing outside on the mobile, relaying information, and remembering to disconnect the dish from the modem, we again re-programmed the modem to a new set of frequencies.

After 45 minutes we were up and running and all was forgiven.

The location was on the side of a hill, so I decided that some chains and pegs were in order. The next day I learnt that you do need to use a van to pull pegs from the ground and that if you do, some pins bend 90°'s before coming out of what I can only suspect was sand-stone. Suffice to say that the dish didn't move...