Thread: Phlatwound Takes Over Care and Feeding of the Birdview Spoon

I have made arrangements with Phlatwound to come and pickup the Birdview Spoon that I "found" and have pictures of in the Adventures in Dish Hunting (Adventures in Dish Hunting 2009) thread.

He will make the trip up on Saturday morning and we'll get it taken down and packed up for the trip home.

In the mean time, I drove down to the dish site and took a few more pictures and measurments to let Phlat know what he is getting.

IMHO, the dish is definitely a Ku dish. After doing some measuring of the "wedge", and taking pictures from the back, I think we will all agree that it was originally manufactured for Ku, then adpated for C-Band.

The reflector and feed support assembly are both made of steel, and not aluminum. I measure 53 inches for the focal length which is not accurate, but I couldn't reach any further. I would guess the focal length to fall in the 55 - 60 inch range to the center of the dish.

The top of the support arm is 43 inches from the reflector edge, so that gives you an idea for how far it will hang down if hauled with the dish face down on your truck Jody.

After looking at the pictures of the back, even the nay-sayers will agree that it is a ku dish.

If someone wants to determine the F/D ratio, the dish measures 7'3" on the short axis, and 8'3" on the long axis. It also looks like new holes will have to be drilled in the "wedge" to make it fit upright on the mount.

For those wanting to figure the offset, the "wedge" measures 10 inches from the backside of the dish at it's tallest point and goes down to about .5 inches at it's shortest. That span is approx 4 foot diameter. So that will give you some idea of the off-set.

Once finished, this will be the largest Ku dish I have ever seen.

Phlatwound can chime in and take over the thread, because it is his baby from here on out.



Here are todays pics:

Here are a few comments (Adventures in Dish Hunting 2009) I made when the dish was first documented by Linuxman.

This isn't the first Spoon we've heard of and discussed.
LoneWolf85 gave us some pictures (super rare off set birdview dish) of the one he found, about a year ago.

There's an old guy living out in the California desert, who claims to have two 8½' BVs and a pallet load of Spoons! -
I tried to send one of our more mobile members by his house last year to get a BV, but that fell through.
Unfortunately, we've lost touch, and I fear for both the dishes and his health.
Gotta get 'em when you find 'em!

Was thinking someone else had located one of these Spoons, but don't seem to find it right now.

Since Phlat is so anxious to see how this one operates, I believe we'll all have ring-side seats to the next great show! -
On with the festivities!

Thanks a bunch for the pics and measurements, Fred, looking forward to the trip and the harvest.

I believe the feed support will have to be pulled off to haul the dish face down, but we'll see. One way or the other it's heading south, in fact I know a guy that hauled a bigger dish (BV solid) to SW MO from the StL area, I'm sure he'll figure something out!

Once it's set up I bet that sucker will pick up RTV even if they aren't sending a signal from the uplink.

See ya soon!

Instead of the crating technique you've used before, consider my palletizing method (Birdview harvesting, California style:).
Just used two 10' long 2x6 boards, bolts, and cargo straps.
Won't have to take the feed arm off at all.

Originally Posted by Anole

Instead of the crating technique you've used before, consider my palletizing method (Birdview harvesting, California style:).
Just used two 10' long 2x6 boards, bolts, and cargo straps.
Won't have to take the feed arm off at all.

Hmmm, I had forgotten about that method, thanks.

I will take a couple of 2x8s also. My rigging will have to be on top of my pickup bed rails, I wish I had a flatbed like that but I don't.

At first I was worried about that feed support sticking up in a 70 mph (+) breeze, but I see in the pics that it has a strut rod to brace it, shouldn't be a problem.

Originally Posted by lonewolf85

Ok Anole the focal lenght is 5ft 1 in.

Originally Posted by Anole

Thanks for the measurement.
I say the F/D is: (where F= focal length and D= diameter)
5.083' divided by 7.166' width = 0.70
The "size" of an offset dish is the width, not the height,
...if it appears round to the LNB.
And the round scalar says the LNBf is looking at a round dish!

Originally Posted by lonewolf85

I am not sure how to figure the offset angle but if you tell me how to do it I will give it a try.

I tried to measure the offset of that washing tub that goes between the back of the dish and the black mount.
From your picture, I measured a very rough 15° but that's not very accurate because I didn't have a suitable angle in the picture.

Then, I tried to estimate the offset by measuring the face angle of the LNB holder (scalar mount, actually) to where I thought the center of the dish might be.
That appeared to be in the vicinity of 35°.
Again, not a very precise measure, due to not having the best picture.

If you could lay that tub down on a flat surface and measure the angle of the rim (or center, depending if you put it open side down or up, respectively), then that would be the better measure.
I'd expect it in the 20°..30° range, most likely.

The F/D was probably more interesting of the two, and it's right in the range you would expect.
Modern offset Ku-band LNBf's are in the 0.6 to 0.7 range, and should match that dish just fine.
To use a C-band LNBf, would probably require a conical scalar, as has been discussed so many times, here.

This is all from a year-old thread.
Time to build upon this info and get one of these dishes running.!.

Man all these long hours at work are causeing me to miss all the fun here at SatelliteGuys.US. Linuxman Nice find and Thanks a ton for the pics I had no Idea how to put mine back together also I applaud you for giveing this dish to Phlatwound. You have a good dish there buddy and I am sure It will give fabulous service on Ku band.

Originally Posted by lonewolf85

Man all these long hours at work are causeing me to miss all the fun here at SatelliteGuys.US. Linuxman Nice find and Thanks a ton for the pics I had no Idea how to put mine back together also I applaud you for giveing this dish to Phlatwound. You have a good dish there buddy and I am sure It will give fabulous service on Ku band.

Hey Lonewolf, you got that right. Linuxman is the king of dish hunters and quite generous to boot, I really appreciate him thinking of me on this deal.

It's going to be quite the learning experience getting this one up and running, I'll be posting pics as I go.

Good to hear from you!

Soon the Queen of dishes will join the King. Linuman made a great choice in spooning it over to you.