Hello.
I am a newbie on the offset Ku dish scene, having just gotten a wave frontier T90 and the SV8000 rec'vr.
I always liked the extravagant stuff.
I am now re-kindling an old hobby or two by playing with satellites again.
I started back in '82 or so with a Radex 10.5 footer (Ku mesh).
I made a C/Ku scaler with the Ku off-set from prime-focus.
It worked. It had it's own polarity probe/motor as did the C-feed.
Later I bought a Seavey co-rotor which put them both on prime-focus.
I had played with Ku by itself on a 6' solid which was on a trailer with multi-adjust mast for making it plumb no matter what the levelness of the yard was.
I expanded it to 8' with a kit for it to do so.
That dish was available as solid or perforated (ku holes). It was called Spacemate. I still have several of those around here in parts.
I trade off the Radex & installed a 13' Hero (Ku mesh) with it's H-H chain drive.
I still have it installed and it now wears the Seavey feed for C/Ku as it had when I last played with it.
I kinda lost interest in the early/mid 90's but kept it in case I ever wanted to try EME (moonbounce) as a HAM with it's H-H capabilities.
I have always been facinated with satellite technology, and did ALOT of Ham satelitte operation using stacked Yagi's with full Az-El computer tracking on one mast with (2) 22 el 2-mtr beams, (2) 40 el 70 cm beams, & (2) 55 el 1.2ghz beams with 360 deg Az & 180 deg Elevation. The computer interface was super-cool as it would put the whole array on the horizon a minute before AOS and then track the moving object in Az and El. When it got to 90 deg in El, it was/is smart enough to rotate the Az 180 and then continue to track the El DOWN to LOS on the leaving horizon. This was ALOT easier on the coaxes....ha ha.
Anyhow....it looks like the FTA thing has got me inspired enough to play BUD again and probably add a modern Ku LNBF to it?
I may even take the 13' down.
Even after I quit, I still acquired dishes as I found them or ferreted them out.
If I take the 13' down....it will be replaced with one of the 'finds'.
I chased for years to locate it...and I finally got a 16' Hero with it's massive Horizon-Horizon chain drive. The mast will need the be modified for it.
I have it though and it is a 6" necked-down and tall enough.
Thankfully when I put the first mast in, I made it so I could unbolt it from the concrete base. It is a 20" circle of 1/2" steel dead-manned in a 4'x4' block of concrete with anothe 20"x1/2" plate bolted to it with (4) 1" bolts. That makes it so I can take it off & modify it (had to do that going from the 10.5' to the 13'). So I will have to do that again. The PVC cable run (underground) goes right up thru the mast for neatnesss/protection.
I will try to post some pics of the 13' as it is, before I do the swap to 16'.
As to some of the other posts in this thread...
Janeil made a 12 footer called a "Darkstar". It was nice looking, but the outer ring-band was plastic and failed after extended UV. I could be fixed though...a neighbor had one & I helped him fix it years ago.
Another nice H-H dish from that era was the 12' Paraclypse...it has dbl-row chain drive.
I scarfed one of those up too......
