Message posted by JB737 on November 16, 2007 at 17:13:41 PST:
Slightly unusual configuration for holding the dish's sensor or transmitter, but other than that, it looks pretty generic. Here are the things I would think about: 1. The nice/heavy tripod tells us that the dish and its mount/positioner are normally used on the ground. If they were normally used on a tower, the mounting would be more like a pipe, pier, weldment, or something like that. 2. Many things tell us that the lift and platform are not only temporary but likely hastily thrown together without a lot of engineering. Maybe they expected it to work from ground level and had a rude surprise that what they were aiming it at could not be seen, and that line of sight was needed. 3. I presume that it was raised in order to gain line of sight on another device or target. If you know the terrain and location of other objects/targets that might be associated with it, then maybe the height of the hoist will reveal something to narrow down the choices. I doubt they would raise the thing 65 feet if 50 feet would suffice, for example, as the amount of guying and other Jerry-rigging... not to mention motion/instability... probably increases severely with height of this setup. 4. Maybe if it were something very important and needing a very steady platform, they would have brought in a concrete pumper and a bunch of 36-inch dimater sonotubes, and raised a forest of concrete piers to the desired height, linked them together at the top, etc. Because they did spend some money doing what they did, but didn't pour any concrete, I tend to think that the dish doesn't have to be held perfectly steady to function OK, and/or it needs to be redeployable quickly to places where that would not be practical (or maybe would not be needed). JB737
In Reply to: Mystery Dish... posted by Joerg (Webmaster) on November 16, 2007 at 9:04:21 PST:
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