Dish color and Height for a 7.5 ft dish ground install

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qwerty81

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Feb 27, 2006
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The dish I just got is grey I was thinking of painting it black. Is there any gain or benefit on the color of the dish? Im a newbie to cband and this is my first mesh and I want to make this dish look new again. Also How tall should the pipe be from the ground to be clear of hitting it? Oh and last..... for now. What is the range of an actuator? I am familiar with ku band H-H motors. I am in South Florida and my southernmost sat is 79 deg, do actuators go east of your southernmost sat or just west from there?
 
With a 7.5, 4 foot will keep it off the ground. I have my 10' mounted 5' above the ground with plenty of clearance.
Since you are a bit closer to the equator, you'll have more clearance...
Actuators go both ways. Depends on how you adjust them. You can favor one direction more than the other - just depends on the actuator you have and the birds you want to see.
Color doesn't matter. Keep it flat tho'. You don't want a shiny dish.
 
Since your in a warm area and snow/ice is not a problem for you, just keep it a gray color and if mowing is not a issue then keep it low to the ground. I have all my dishes on 10' poles so I can use the garden tractor to mow under them.
 
Just a word on the dish finish - Especially at those two times of the year when the satellites are close to in line with the sun (but even at other times to a degree) the dish is parabolic, meaning it will focus the sun's rays to one point. This means that all of that heat will be focused on a point.

If your dish is shiny, and a bird just happens to fly through the focal point---you guessed it
B FFFFFF T! it's fried in a millisecond.

Likewise if your face happens into that focal point. It's why you have to use flat paint. Flat paint reflects the satellite signal back just fine, but dramatically disperses the heat of the sun so as not to be deadly to living things.

On a related point, some invention and study has been done to focus the sun's rays with a parabolic reflector, so as to provide hot water to the world. The problem continues to be how to get the reflector to follow the sun without electric power and sensors.

If someone could invent a cheap mechanical clock type deal that maybe had some way to compensate for differences in dish size and weight, they would be making a real contribution to cleanliness, energy savings and the war against disease. We take hot water for granted in our world. For much of the world, all that is in warm water are crocodiles and disease.
 
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