Dishes to re-purpose

[NorthernOhioGuy]

So yesterday I brought home a hughesnet dish, a slimline, and a dish hd that had all accumulated on a friend's rental house. I figured these would be some good things to tinker with when it gets a little nicer outside and see if I can achieve some reliable fta reception on them.

I know I need to fashion a way to mount new lnbs in the exact correct spot on the slimline and the dish hd. My question is would the lnb on the hughesnet dish be usable for fta at all?
It has several numbers on it: 1504862-0003 REV B ; 1504860-002 REV E ; 1505328-0014 REV J.
Any other tips or tricks would be appreciated as well.

My friend has a couple other rental houses that also have some kinds of dishes up that are not in use. He told me I could go take them down as well if I want them, I don't know what they are for sure, but hoping maybe he had a fta enthusiast for a former tenant.

 

[EmCommSat]

So yesterday I brought home a hughesnet dish, a slimline, and a dish hd that had all accumulated on a friend's rental house. I figured these would be some good things to tinker with when it gets a little nicer outside and see if I can achieve some reliable fta reception on them.

I know I need to fashion a way to mount new lnbs in the exact correct spot on the slimline and the dish hd. My question is would the lnb on the hughesnet dish be usable for fta at all?
It has several numbers on it: 1504862-0003 REV B ; 1504860-002 REV E ; 1505328-0014 REV J.
Any other tips or tricks would be appreciated as well.

My friend has a couple other rental houses that also have some kinds of dishes up that are not in use. He told me I could go take them down as well if I want them, I don't know what they are for sure, but hoping maybe he had a fta enthusiast for a former tenant.

The 1505328-0014 Rev J is a Jupiter 1watt KA band radio/lnb, (gen4 and Gen5) which is not usable for FTA. What size is your Hughesnet dish, is it a 0.74m elliptical or a round 0.90m reflector? I have been playing with a 0.74m elliptical dish for 91w FTA with ok results, still trying to figure out the best LNBF mount for it. The universal LNBF mount I have been using has broken twice. I am also using a DishHD dish to pull in SES-2 a 87W with decent results using a GeoSat PLL LNBF and universal LNBF holder. I do have some issues during very heavy rain storms.


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[NorthernOhioGuy]

It is an elliptical one. I'm not sure of a formula to figure if it comes up to .74m or something else. It measures just shy of 36 inches across by about 25 inches high. Assuming (which we should all know what can happen when we assume) the formula would take into account the height and width and calculate some sort of average between the too, I would say the .74m is what it is.

 

[arlo]

If it helps. I came across a Wild Blue dish with a sub reflector and tria.
I wanted to re-purpose it for Ku band. I calculated the measurements and made an adjustable LNB mount to place it.
Couldn't get a signal. Period.
I ended up putting pieces of reflective mylar around the rim and focusing it at the sun to get the brightest focal point on a piece of paper. It turned out to a bit further out from the calculated distance. I was able to get a signal fast once mounted and aimed at a sat. A little tweaking was needed, but not so bad

 

[NorthernOhioGuy]

If it helps. I came across a Wild Blue dish with a sub reflector and tria.
I wanted to re-purpose it for Ku band. I calculated the measurements and made an adjustable LNB mount to place it.
Couldn't get a signal. Period.
I ended up putting pieces of reflective mylar around the rim and focusing it at the sun to get the brightest focal point on a piece of paper. It turned out to a bit further out from the calculated distance. I was able to get a signal fast once mounted and aimed at a sat. A little tweaking was needed, but not so bad

That sounds like a good idea with the mylar. I may have to try that!

 

[NorthernOhioGuy]

I got the slimline fixed up with a standard ku lnb, and i got the dish mounted and locked in on galaxy 19. I scanned in 140 tv channels and 35-ish radio channels. I'm sure I will lose them more quickly when the weather is bad, but I'm glad I was able to make it work.

A couple tips for anyone else wanting to try this: Before taking the Directv lnb off, I fashioned a sort of jig from wood. Then I could use it to make sure I had the new lnb in the exact same place as the original as I tried to come up with a way to mount it where it needed to be. I also set my elevation and skew before taking the dish outside. Once I went out to put the dish on the pole, it only took 15-20 minutes to get it pointed where it needed to be, locked down, and scanning in channels.

I'm sure there was some luck involved, but it really ended up going pretty smoothly.

 

[NorthernOhioGuy]

I mounted the hughes dish on a pallet and set it just inside the south door of my barn. All I have to do is slide the door open and I have a nice view of the southern sky. It probably won't stay there forever but it was handy for working and experimenting. I ended up getting a bracket for attaching multiple lnbfs to it. I now have it set up on 103w, 99w, and 87w. I get decent watchable signals on all of them in good weather. I don't know how quickly I lose things when it rains because I've not been around to test it when it has been raining.




I'm sure it can be improved upon, but the results at this point are better than I was expecting when I began.

 

[mr_rye89]

Been working on this slimline on a tripod. Works surprisingly well. I'm gonna put the standard LNBF on tomorrow and try with Orby. I also will be getting another slimline to play with soon......