Anyone make Toroidals that are big enough to receive CBAND?

[mastermesh]

Anyone make Toroidals that are big enough to receive CBAND?

Been reading several posts from folks about the awesome KU band toroidal dishes. Does anyone make something like that that's 6+ feet big or however big is needed to receive C band?

 

[Mr Tony]

that would be one helluva big dish and wouldnt work the same as the KU due to scaler rings. You would need about 9 degrees apart from each other. I know I got 91 & 99 with 2 C-Band LNB's but one didnt have any scaler rings on it

 

[jerryt]

Yeah, A Toroidal C band T240.

 

[mikekohl]

Visions, a microwave TV pioneer in Anchorage, Alaska, installed a TORUS antenna for reception of multiple satellites back about 1976. It would cost as much as most homes in better neighborhoods today. Will have to dig out a picture from my archives when time permits.

 

[bnaivar]

Oh yes! In the cable TV business I've used several. Check out the ATCi Simulsat;

http://www.atci.net/C_P_Simulsat.htm

I remember getting a real bad sunburn from sitting on a ladder between the primary and secondary reflectors tweaking LNBs.

 

[dashaund]

Talk about one big dish! I think HOA would shut you down for that, haha.

 

[charper1]

IF you survived the beating by your wife. I am seeing these all over with newer cable systems.

 

[voomvoom]

Now that's what I want.

Al

 

[Inno]

Woooo hoohoohoohooo.......damn!!!! That's something we ALL could make use of.
And really, it looks waaay better then many pieces of "art" I've seen.

 

[N5XZS]

I remember seeing a big Toroidals dish at a local sportbar casino in Carson City, NV and it's looks like a 30 footer size!!

Can't remember the name of the casino and it's located near Highway, 50 that's goes up to Lake Tahoe.

I go to lake Tahoe every year to visit my family, so that's why I see a famous site everytime pass by them.

It's a shame I should had taken a picture of a 30 footer dish.

Maybe next time will or some one will post ths picture on this thread.:

 

[Likvid]

Is it legal to install a dish that size in your backyard in USA or do you need permit?

 

[scottc98]

Here is what I would love a new subdivision to do:

Create their own cable company or dish distrobution area with one of these dishes. Use a undesirable area of land to place the dishes and control area, and run a couple lines to each house. They can make it part of their HOA fees and charge a "connection fee" for the # of sats you want.

Then the OTARD portion could be overriden by HOA's cause they are still providing the signal you need that is not degraded. Also, were talking about adding C-band too, which most people with HOA's really can't get.

 

[mastermesh]

Scottc that's a darn good idea... Someone want to write up a business model? While at it, the subdivision could have some wifi towers spread around so everyone gets free high speed internet. That'd be freaking awesome.

 

[Hermitman]

If you want to have some fun, get a 12 foot mesh, split it down the middle and hinge it. That way you can have two different focal points on the same prime focus antenna and use two LNBs. Then swing the two halfs till you find the satellites you want to watch. Have fun.

 

[Wholeshoe]

If you want to have some fun, get a 12 foot mesh, split it down the middle and hinge it. That way you can have two different focal points on the same prime focus antenna and use two LNBs. Then swing the two halfs till you find the satellites you want to watch. Have fun.

Do you swing the halves open or closed? I am guessing open.

Wholeshoe

 

[Wholeshoe]

I've assisted in installing a Simulsat. You use a crane to set the skew and place it on its mount.

Then to find the sats they get up there in a bucket truck and hold and LNB in their hand and mark each sat location before installing the feeds and tweaking them in.

Wholeshoe

 

[Hermitman]

They would swing open. Basically, it would be like having two weird looking offset antennas setting vertically. You could even put an actuator on one half to adjust it from inside the house. Half of a 12 foot mesh should bring in enough signal to give you a good picture. I have too much time on my hands to think up these ideas. Maybe I'll try it next summer.
Have fun.

 

[scottc98]

Scottc that's a darn good idea... Someone want to write up a business model? While at it, the subdivision could have some wifi towers spread around so everyone gets free high speed internet. That'd be freaking awesome.

Yeah, I was thinking broadband too. If you were to run a cable co, instead of a dish "farm", I'd run fiber to each house. At the designated location, you can place small infrustructure to house the mux equip and maybe run a OC-3 and mux out the bandwidth to each home. Even if you were to run it over coax and go the "thicknet" route, you would still be able to get a good 10mbs, which is plenty for the avg household (and cable more cheap to run).

Legally, the tv pricing may be tough if this is treated as a cable co, as each channel may be looked at being "re-transmitted" and stations would want a premium for it (what about the FTA channels ?) . Now, in a dish farm set up, its just a community shared access point and should be looked upon as no different if you had a FTA dish in your own backyard.

For pay channels, you can set up two main dishes for DTV and DISHNET, and another for 4DTV. The latter might be tough as the dishes would be stationary and I am not sure on how the 4dtv boxes would switch between sats. Wonder if the 4dtv channel resellers would give a nice price break for the group

 

[Likvid]

That idea is not exactly new and is used in Europe everywhere.

However it is no fun for us hobbyists but more suitable for the masses that want to share a community dish.

It's called SMATV in Europe where you distribute the satellite signal to each household and they can choose whatever receiver they like.

Very common with the Wavefrontier T90, where you can have like 15 satellites and then distribute the raw signal to each household.

 

[Inno]

Ya know it's funny, I read this post last week and before that I'd never heard of such an animal. Just this weekend I was travelling to a wedding in Southern Minnesota (right through Iceberg and PSB's territory I believe) and saw 3 of these in small communities being used for their cable systems (I'm guessing). Very cool looking, and in my opinion much more attractive than a plain ole BUD!