My 23cm EME station is not "permanent." It is essentially a "portable" station. All the equipment is located in my garage. The 2.4m folding dish lays on the floor along with two AC extension cords and the rest of the equipment is on a 3-layer Service Utility Cart.
To set up the station, I roll out the utility cart with the equipment and an office chair, roll out and connect the AC cords, and power on the laptop and the WinTrak controller. Next I install the SubLunar SL-1 Az-El antenna controllers on the tripod which is tied down to the edge of the driveway and secured with a spiral Earth Anchor. Next I mount the folding dish to the SL-1 mount and connect three cables from the SL-1 to the WinTrack Antenna Controller. Then I unfurl the dish (a step ladder and yard stick is helpful to make sure the perimeter wire on the dish is not caught on anything.) Once the perimeter wire is clear, I expand the dish to stress it into a parabolic shape and lock it into place. Next I tell the WinTrak controller to bring the dish down to where I can connect the TX and RX cables to the OK1DFC Septum Feed and to the AG6EE power amplifier.
At this point, the equipment is connected and ready to use. I shot a video of this process and then compressed it to a total running time of 45 seconds. The actual setup of the dish and equipment took 19 minutes. You can view the video here: Antenna Erection Video. This video will open in a new window.
