I have never seen a dish like this before. I'm assuming it is fiberglass but I could be wrong. I'm hoping someone here will be able to tell me if it's worth finding the property owner or if I should keep looking. Sorry for the terrible picture. The dish is over 500ft off the road. If the site doesn't downsize you should be able to zoom. Thanks.
Is this dish worth looking into?
- Thread starter Demandzm
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Short answer: Keep looking.
If you were an experienced hobbyist and wanted a challenging project, you could have an interesting conversation piece.
If you were an experienced hobbyist and wanted a challenging project, you could have an interesting conversation piece.
This looks like the dish that the singer Prince owned. There was post about it in a thread here when it went up for sale on Craigslist.
Kijiji, eBay, and Craigslist dishes for you to take a look at
If it were free and I had the room for it I would grab it myself just for the novelty of it but as Magic Static said not the best choice for a usable dish. Good luck in your search!
P.S. Welcome to Satellite Guys!
Thanks guys, I might grab it for later when I have more experience with c band dishes. It is now in the middle of an animal pen, so I'm sure it wont be there much longer. I have 4 mesh dishes within 25 miles of my house that I will ask about.
I had one at one time almost 30 years ago. It's 11.5ft square, uses a 36" potentiometer actuator, is about 300lbs with mount, and I had to use turnbuckles to keep the feed centered. It worked well on C-band back then in the analog days, but it's a beast. Not sure if it would work as well with digital signals, and don't know if KU works as it didn't exist back then/ I didn't have that capability. I eventually chopped it up with a circular saw to get rid of it, and swapped out to a mesh dish.
I also recommend passing it up.
I also recommend passing it up.
It's basically a round dish design that was squared off for whatever reason. So any feed will work just as well as any other.
More accurately, any feed will work equally poorly as any other. Depending on F/D ratio, you will either not be using the squared off corners of the dish, or the feed will "illuminate" the ground behind the dish.
I will tell you. My first satellite was a 10 foot fiberglass channel master. It made it through the hurricane we had. I even live streamed the weather channel. So I could watch it at my dads house 50 miles away.
All I can say. It was much more stable then my mesh ones. I never lost TV till the power failed here.
And my neighbor said the power was still on during the 1st half of the storm.
I also put a ku lnb next to the c band lnb. It worked better then my mesh ones do.
And from what the old lady told me. When I got it from her. Her husband bought it in the 80s.
It took 3 people to place it on the stand. The tripod stand all put together. Weights about 500lbs.
Sadly. The 2nd hurricane took it out. I had relocated it. And my tie-downs failed.
I still use the stand. I mounted a mesh satellite on it.
All I can say. It was much more stable then my mesh ones. I never lost TV till the power failed here.
And my neighbor said the power was still on during the 1st half of the storm.
I also put a ku lnb next to the c band lnb. It worked better then my mesh ones do.
And from what the old lady told me. When I got it from her. Her husband bought it in the 80s.
It took 3 people to place it on the stand. The tripod stand all put together. Weights about 500lbs.
Sadly. The 2nd hurricane took it out. I had relocated it. And my tie-downs failed.
I still use the stand. I mounted a mesh satellite on it.
A company called National Microtech out of Grenada, Miss started that in about 1981-82, seems like if I remember correctly, the fellow in that business was named Fredricks, something close to that. He got the idea to make a UPS shippable dish by squaring off the sides of the quarters of a round dish to make it fit into a UPS shippable size. If you’ll take a look at Coop’s Satellite Digest from about 1981-82 you’ll see some ads from National Microtech for that dish, if I remember correctly they marketed it as ‘Apollo by National Microtech.’
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I think I will just let it go. I'm checking into an 8 foot mesh right now and when I get more experience pointing a big dish I will get the 12 footer I already got permission to take.
If anyone is in the northern michigan area and wants that dish let me know.
If anyone is in the northern michigan area and wants that dish let me know.
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