Build your own cardboard satellite dish!

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Here is a dish I made out of plywood and mosi screen. It was an experiment to produce a large light wieght dish that the wife wouldn't think was an eyesore.
It was a success from than point of view as it was very hard to see with the light behind it.
As a Ku band dish it wasn't great it was 48" but performed like a 33" dish, not really sure why, the mesh size was 1.5 milimeters which should have beem OK for Ku, the accuracy of the dish shape left a bit to be desired which may have explain some of the lose in gain, also it was prime focus so the LNB was in the way of the incoming signal.
It weight in at 20lbs with the mount, so I had 6lbs to play with and still be in spec with my SG2100 motor.
I dreamed up a method of making the ribs out of laminated wood and shaping them on a jig with a router, this should make it even lighter and keep a better shape, just haven't had time to try it. I keep getting messages about finishing the house from some one. :D


http://www.satelliteguys.us/attachment.php?attachmentid=11037&stc=1&d=1156118268
http://www.satelliteguys.us/attachment.php?attachmentid=11038&stc=1&d=1156118268
 

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Would be really cool is someone would set up a shop doing wooden ones all the time, and combine that with doing stylish wooden computer case mods... I can think of tons of sculptural ideas that would be excellent if you could get it all up and going and had enough startup money.
 
The original one looks like those solar stoves that they mand in the late 1960's. The solar stoves used the same construction; made of cardboard with aluminum foil.

On a sunny day, it will cook the lnb.
 
And very easy to make, the below dish is made with a sawn off fan stand! EXACTLY the right diameter to fit the Dish :eureka

It could be placed on the floor in front of a south facing window!
 

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:) The dish is simply inverted, upside down! Its a circular LNB so it will work in any position.

Most of my dish are upside down to keep them low and out of sight as much as possible! Even a linear LNB will work this way!
 

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is there some sort of conversion you are doing when you flip them upside down?

i.e Elevation and Azmith corrections to original up-right settings.

Or are you just eyeballing it and doing blind scans to find where you are at?
 
I am a professional satellite installer so I use a positive ID Satellite meter! But ANY cheap satellite meter will get you onto the Clarke Belt, then you could use the blind scan method :)

Remember the satellite elevation never changes, so once you have found one satellite you have found them all!
 
Do you get better reception that way?

My question, if I took my Dish 300 and tried to get 148, it says for my zip code on the dish receiver that it is 11deg elevation, there is not an 11 deg mark on the dish, would I need to turn it upside down?
 
Your Dish 300 should go down low enough, but if not inverting the dish may be an option!
 
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