ok, ok... You guys talked me into it.

[Dee_Ann]

Ok, I think I'm going to regret this, I think I'm stepping into another tar pit like I did with the KU motor thing but you guys have convinced me.

I'm going to put up (have put up) a big dish. Ugh.. There. I said it.

This will work for Cband right? It seems to be similar to others I've seen mentioned on here.

I need to be able to connect it into my existing pc satellite tuner. I have a Hauppage Nova-S-plus tuner and it's connected to an 8x discque switch.

For now I just want to aim it at the satellite that has THIStv but I want the option of adding a motor to it in the near future so my pc can move it around to other satellites.

I called my ex and he says there are no motors for those old satellite dishes he collected, he threw them away along with the lnb things too.

He said there are several 8 foot dishes, several 10 foot dishes and a 12 foot dish out on the "Lot from Hell" aka "Hell’s Half-acre" and they are all most likely totally engulfed in weeds, vines, snakes and goddess knows what else. He started collecting them about 15 years ago and just took them apart and stacked them like big bowls out there.

His advice to me on digging one out? "Don't try it."
I said I wanted one and he said "Good luck, carry a snake bite kit and your cell phone."

I asked about the one big dish that is here in pieces tied to a tree. He said that there are no parts left for it here, it's only the four quarter panels, all the rest of it is missing and long gone. Useless for TV. He said I would do best to make a gazebo out of it.

I guess I need to get out to the lot soon with my camera and take some pictures of what's there and you guys I'm sure could recommend which dish would be the best one to go with as I have no clue in the universe about them. I know zero about that stuff other than what little I remember from way back when we had one to watch and it was constant trouble.

I do recall though, once upon a time, a hurricane came through, we had like 90mph winds and we were able to watch TV all through the storm. It got sparkly at times but it never went out. I can't say that about the little KU satellites. They go out easy.

OH! That reminds me! I saw mention of a weather channel on the cband satellite, is that for real? Still there? I would love to have a weather channel!

 

[Anole]

I'd have recommended a similar LNBF from one of our sponsors, but I don't know of any reason the one you found shouldn't work.

The front page of our gold sponsor, WSI/Galaxy, has a 24" motor on sale right now for $30.
Get some discussion going here, to see if that would be suitable.
To drive it, I'd suggest the Gbox v3000 from Sadoun.
The details of wiring that into your system will have to be stuff of more serious consideration.

From all difficulties had by so many members, I wouldn't burden you trying to get Ku on a BUD.
Get some C-band, and be happy. -

And as for dishes, I still have dreams of that one you and your buddy found on vacation.
Probably too big , too heavy, and too far away, but still exciting! -
For now, list what channels you want, and I'm sure the guys can come up with some dish sizes to spark your imagination.

ALSO, your first BUD need not be perfect nor your last.
Put up the smallest, lightest one you have, and get some experience.
You may well leave it fix-aimed, and later add a better one to the 'farm', polished, painted, cemented, motorized, et al! -

 

[Dee_Ann]

I'd have recommended a similar LNBF from one of our sponsors, but I don't know of any reason the one you found shouldn't work.

The front page of our gold sponsor, WSI/Galaxy, has a 24" motor on sale right now for $30.
Get some discussion going here, to see if that would be suitable.
To drive it, I'd suggest the Gbox v3000 from Sadoun.
The details of wiring that into your system will have to be stuff of more serious consideration.

From all difficulties had by so many members, I wouldn't burden you trying to get Ku on a BUD.
Get some C-band, and be happy. -

And as for dishes, I still have dreams of that one you and your buddy found on vacation.
Probably too big , too heavy, and too far away, but still exciting! -
For now, list what channels you want, and I'm sure the guys can come up with some dish sizes to spark your imagination.

ALSO, your first BUD need not be perfect nor your last.
Put up the smallest, lightest one you have, and get some experience.
You may well leave it fix-aimed, and later add a better one to the 'farm', polished, painted, cemented, motorized, et al! -

That giant dish we found, well, we want to stay away from that area, her estranged husband still lives very near there and we are both afraid of him as he has threatened us both with violence. For our safety, we just stay as far away from him and that part of the world as possible.

And even if it weren't for him, there's just no way in the world to get something like that from there to here or even installed here. It's just waaaaaaay over the top...

Ding-a-ling said all the dishes on the lot are "mesh" type. You can see through them. He said they are not heavy, just big and clumsy to move. He said I could pick one, take it apart and put the pieces in my van to get them home and put them back together again once here.

 

[Mikhel]

Welcome to the big dish world Dee Ann, you won't regret it .

At Anik 107ºW there was a channel with weather info, also on one of the NBC mux's in SD there is an occasional weather channel (if you have Ku then maybe you know about it, if not, send me a PM ).

Since you're in southeast Texas, i'd also recommend to you a channel with news, it's in spanish but it has weather reports from that region because it's in México, in a state bordering Texas ---> Nuevo León (New Lion), it's located at one of the Satmex (116ºW) in the Multimedios mux (the channel is called Milenio), there's also a channel from Texas broadcasting news all the time, this one located at 121ºW C (Texas Cable News 3780 V, SR 29270).

I think you'll quickly like whatever feeds and channels you'll get .

Cheers!

Mike

Ok, I think I'm going to regret this, I think I'm stepping into another tar pit like I did with the KU motor thing but you guys have convinced me.

I'm going to put up (have put up) a big dish. Ugh.. There. I said it.

This will work for Cband right? It seems to be similar to others I've seen mentioned on here.

I need to be able to connect it into my existing pc satellite tuner. I have a Hauppage Nova-S-plus tuner and it's connected to an 8x discque switch.

For now I just want to aim it at the satellite that has THIStv but I want the option of adding a motor to it in the near future so my pc can move it around to other satellites.

I called my ex and he says there are no motors for those old satellite dishes he collected, he threw them away along with the lnb things too.

He said there are several 8 foot dishes, several 10 foot dishes and a 12 foot dish out on the "Lot from Hell" aka "Hell’s Half-acre" and they are all most likely totally engulfed in weeds, vines, snakes and goddess knows what else. He started collecting them about 15 years ago and just took them apart and stacked them like big bowls out there.

His advice to me on digging one out? "Don't try it."
I said I wanted one and he said "Good luck, carry a snake bite kit and your cell phone."

I asked about the one big dish that is here in pieces tied to a tree. He said that there are no parts left for it here, it's only the four quarter panels, all the rest of it is missing and long gone. Useless for TV. He said I would do best to make a gazebo out of it.

I guess I need to get out to the lot soon with my camera and take some pictures of what's there and you guys I'm sure could recommend which dish would be the best one to go with as I have no clue in the universe about them. I know zero about that stuff other than what little I remember from way back when we had one to watch and it was constant trouble.

I do recall though, once upon a time, a hurricane came through, we had like 90mph winds and we were able to watch TV all through the storm. It got sparkly at times but it never went out. I can't say that about the little KU satellites. They go out easy.

OH! That reminds me! I saw mention of a weather channel on the cband satellite, is that for real? Still there? I would love to have a weather channel!

 

[Dee_Ann]

My ex, aka "Ding-a-ling" (I'm being nice) emailed me some pics from the "Lot from Hell" of some of the stuff that's there. These are some of the pics he took for insurance claims after one of the hurricanes tore everything all up.

In one pic you can see a dish laying on the ground in the weeds. It's one of many 10 foot dishes out there but he says none of the hardware is around anymore and using them for tv watching is not likely to be easy.

There is one dish that's blown half over from a hurricane. He used it back in the 90's to listen to radio while working out at the lot. He said that the motor is on it but is long ago broken beyond repair. The tuner parts are long gone, he threw them out years ago.

He said the pipe could be sawed off to get the dish down to the ground. It would have to be taken apart and carried out in pieces. The problem is going to be that there is no electricity out there anymore for a saw. "You're going to have fun with it hunny..." Ha. Ha. Right... Thank you for your support. Not....

So anyway, the one that he says I'll be most likely to get working is 8 foot around.
He has no idea of the brand and knows nothing about the lnb inside the nose cone thingie. He said that the lnb is probably ruined because at the angle it is now, it's probably been full of water for years and whatever was in there is now scrap metal at best.

His suggestion is to count on buying a new motor and a new lnb.

He said to forget the 12 foot dish, it's broken up, the "ribs" are made of plastic and several of them are broken. And that it would be just waaaay too big to be of any real use anyway.

I'll try to get out there once the weather gets a little better, we are in for a week of nasty rain and I'm sure not going out there with that going on. I want to take my Canon and get some detailed photos of what's out there.

Anyway, here's the pics he sent me. Maybe one of you guys will know what these dishes are or if they can even be used or not.

 

[Anole]

ALSO, your first BUD need not be perfect nor your last.
Put up the smallest, lightest one you have, and get some experience.
You may well leave it fix-aimed, and later add a better one to the 'farm', polished, painted, cemented, motorized, et al! -

With that said, the 2nd picture looks like an encouraging dish.
You say it's eight feet across? Good size, too.
From the pix, it doesn't seem to be distorted. (do the string test to be sure)
Has all its panels, too.

If you were to take it off the mount... or even the dish 'n mount off the pole, ...
... I'm sure you and one other could carry it whole where you needed it.
Yes, it's mostly awkward, not all that heavy.
Just put on a pair of cotton gardening gloves to keep your hands clean and so you don't get cut by any edges.

You were going to use that LNBF you found on eBay, so any water in the nosecone won't matter too much.

More pictures with better lighting will get your more suggestions. -

 

[Dee_Ann]

With that said, the 2nd picture looks like an encouraging dish.
You say it's eight feet across? Good size, too.
From the pix, it doesn't seem to be distorted. (do the string test to be sure)
Has all its panels, too.

If you were to take it off the mount... or even the dish 'n mount off the pole, ...
... I'm sure you and one other could carry it whole where you needed it.
Yes, it's mostly awkward, not all that heavy.
Just put on a pair of cotton gardening gloves to keep your hands clean and so you don't get cut by any edges.

You were going to use that LNBF you found on eBay, so any water in the nosecone won't matter too much.

More pictures with better lighting will get your more suggestions. -

There is a deathtrap jumble of collapsed buildings and machinery all around where that dish is. It's like surrounded in debris 6 feet deep. It's highly dangerous just to get into that little area. I went in there once after the hurricane and I thought for sure I was going to die, impaled on pipes and machines.

So there is no easy way to get to that thing, it's going to be pretty rough going.
I asked the ex to help me get that dish out of there. He laughed at me and wished me luck. That's about right though, we always stayed out of one another's business and I guess nothing has changed. Eh.... Whatever..

Well, when I do make it out there I can try to figure out a way to get that thing out of there. It's going to be difficult and dangerous. I have a feeling that the entire project, start to finish is going to be a HUGE pain...

 

[Mikhel]

As Anole said, the second dish looks fine.

As for the debris, i don't know, maybe more photos could be of help, if theres A LOT maybe a little ingeniosity will help: get help from guys around the block , or even a tractor or some vehicle similar to push/pull all the debris out of the way, of course if it's too much then it'll be a whole lot more tricky.



M.

 

[Blindowl1234]

Dee, If you like KU band...You'll love Cband. In my opinion there's a lot more up there. This Tv, Nasa, CW--3Channels, My Family TV, AMG Tv, QVC, HSN....a bunch. I started out with an old Cband dish that was fixed on one sat. It's still there.
Along side is my 6 foot dish with it's acuator. To me Cband was a lot easier to line up and get a picture on the tv, than KU was. Blind

 

[Dee_Ann]

Talked to him again this morning. He said the motor on that dish leaning over broke and he tossed it years ago. He climbed a ladder and used a wrench to twist the screw to move the dish to a satellite that had some wing nut radio station on it and just left it there. That's all he ever used that one for.

The dish we had for TV watching was long ago at another place we once lived at. It's long gone I guess..

Dee, If you like KU band...You'll love Cband. In my opinion there's a lot more up there. This Tv, Nasa, CW--3Channels, My Family TV, AMG Tv, QVC, HSN....a bunch. I started out with an old Cband dish that was fixed on one sat. It's still there.
Along side is my 6 foot dish with it's acuator. To me Cband was a lot easier to line up and get a picture on the tv, than KU was. Blind

AMG?? I remember that on KU! Sometimes they would have cool old B (or C) movies, I think.

I can see now I will be wanting to put a motor on the thing.

Actually, now that I stop and think about this, I'm wondering what the heck is going on here. How is it that I've become so wrapped up in this? Like it's an OCD obsession or something. Seriously, I never really cared very much about TV before, I was always on the go and it just wasn't a priority in my life. Now, I feel like Br'er Rabbit.
I resist but it won't let go of me.

Hmmm... Life was simpler when I was never home.

 

[McGuyver]

Dee Ann, if you want a weather channel, you can get "The Weather Channel" most of the time on AMC-6 72°W with a small Ku dish. A 30" should get it fairly easy I think for your area. I'm getting it in So Cal with an old Primestar dish with 90 something % quality. There are 4 NBC channels in this MUX.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Good news and bad news...

The bad news...

Dad went out to "the lot" today to pick up some stuff he stored there. Someone broke in and stole a lot of stuff. Tools and a trailer that belonged to the ex. He was going to sell the stuff and give me some of the money. :river
"The lot" is in a very, very bad part of a very, very bad town...

The stuff Dad had stored there was left alone thank goodness. The thieves tore the place up pretty good breaking in. THAT is one of the several reasons why I am afraid to go down there alone.


The good news now...

Dad is going to pick me up Monday and take a generator and a saw down there and help me cut down that dish and bring it back to my house. Actually, I'll mostly be watching as I don't think there is much I can do, I'm sure that stuff is much too heavy for me.



What sucks though is that the thieves stole a trailer we could have used to bring the dish back with. Now there is no choice, it will have to be taken apart and put in the van. Dad said he'll just saw through the bolts for speed sake and we'll just put new ones in later. In exchange for Dad helping me I get to stand around swatting mosquitoes and playing tool fetcher while he boards up the buildings that were broken into & vandalized. As much as I hate guns, I hope dad is going to bring one while we are there, that place is just flat out scary..

I wish ding-a-ling would just sell the darn lot and be done with it. I don't want it or anything on it. Well, other than maybe the satellite dishes he piled up there. Maybe I can take them apart and sell them. Sure would have been easier to move them with that now stolen trailer.

So anyway, I'm now getting closer to getting that big Cband dish put up.
Dad said he can cut the pipe it's on and I can use that here by planting it in the ground. I dunno. I'm not convinced it's long enough. I would think it would need to be like 20 feet in the ground with all the hurricanes we get here.

The hard part is going to be finding someone that can dig the hole, put the cement in and put the beastie up on the pole. I sure can't do all that. No way..
I guess I'll be bartering with a neighbor again, more beer for labor. You guys are sooooo easy... LOL!!!

I'm thinking that I may actually get the stupid thing up and working within a month.
I also need to figure out where to put it so the trees don't get in the way.
I still have a LOT to learn about Cband though, I know nothing about it other than "we used to have one".. That is the extent of my knowledge on the subject.

I'll sure be glad to get this TV back again! Being a night owl I find very little to watch after 3am. "this TV" will solve that problem. Their schedule starting at 3am just tickles me pink!

So I guess I'll have something to write about next week then when we go to get that dish..

OH YES!! And I'm going to take my fancy Canon and take some very high quality pics of all the dishes down there and let you guys figure out what they are and if any are worth salvage.



TTFN!!

 

[Dishman Dan]

What sucks though is that the thieves stole a trailer we could have used to bring the dish back with. Now there is no choice, it will have to be taken apart and put in the van. ...

The hard part is going to be finding someone that can dig the hole...

How far does this BUD have to be hauled???
I usually leave the BUD together and carefully place it in the back of a pickup. The last 10' I hauled was on a "mooched" trailer for hauling lawn equipment and ATVs. The trailer was wider than the pickup which made it better plus I did not scratch the pickup! The longest I hauled so far was about 13 miles and that was in back of a pickup!

As for digging the hole...
My 10' BUD that I have up had the hole and concrete done in January! This was a few years ago and a couple of days after I did the concrete, winter returned with a vengence! The BUD did not get placed on the pole until June due to work so the concrete had plenty of time to set up. I dug the hole by hand with a spade to get out of the house. My daughter was having a slumber party for her birthday and I thought what a perfect time to get something done outside! She actually came out too and joined me and had lots of fun hiding in the hole from her freinds!

 

[Dee_Ann]

How far does this BUD have to be hauled???
I usually leave the BUD together and carefully place it in the back of a pickup. The last 10' I hauled was on a "mooched" trailer for hauling lawn equipment and ATVs. The trailer was wider than the pickup which made it better plus I did not scratch the pickup! The longest I hauled so far was about 13 miles and that was in back of a pickup!

As for digging the hole...
My 10' BUD that I have up had the hole and concrete done in January! This was a few years ago and a couple of days after I did the concrete, winter returned with a vengence! The BUD did not get placed on the pole until June due to work so the concrete had plenty of time to set up. I dug the hole by hand with a spade to get out of the house. My daughter was having a slumber party for her birthday and I thought what a perfect time to get something done outside! She actually came out too and joined me and had lots of fun hiding in the hole from her freinds!

Distance to move it? Hmmm, maybe five miles, I'm guessing..
I don't have access to a pick up truck. I own a van (my dog hauler) and my dad has a similar van. That's the best I can come up with.

And of course there is the problem of having to take the thing out of the middle of a bunch of collapsed buildings, the debris is like 6 to 10 foot deep all around all sides. That is going to dictate that the thing be taken out in parts. Carrying it out in one piece is very much impossible. However the other dishes out there are not entrapped in debris like this one. But those dishes are much larger and are missing most of their parts.. So.............


OMG..... You had to dig a hole so big your daughter could HIDE in it??? OMG...
Nope. Can. Not. Do..
I planted three rose bushes a few weeks ago and that almost killed me.
I used that hole digger I bought last year and the yard is sticky. It's very difficult.
I planted a small satellite dish last year and that was pretty rough. I was on death's doorstep for a few weeks after that.



But a hole for this thing? Wow... I'm sure not going to be able to do that.
Dad can't do it either, he's like 73 now..

 

[Dishman Dan]

It sounds like getting to the BUD will be more work than I want to do!!!...

If you get to "a" BUD then hopefully mooch a trailer from a freind if possible and hauling would be safer too! If you are really desperate then buy one at Lowe's and try out their return policy when you are done!

The soil around here is a good sandy type mixed with gravel and is very stable. The hole I dug was large enough to place a used pole into with the old concrete still attached. I then poured in about 12 - 80 pound bags of concrete around the old cone shaped concrete and it is one big chunk now. The daughter playing in the hole must be a family tradition or something. I remember when I was 5 or 6 my brother dug a hole large enough for me to stand in and placed a cover over it with along with a large rock for a weight!!!...
I am not sure if I finally crawled out of my hole or if I just crawled out from under a rock!

 

[digiblur]

It's not CBand but can you pick up KPLC on RF 7? They have ThisTV with a pretty strong signal. I know they cover part of Southeast TX.

Not sure what part of SETX you are in:
FM and TV Service Area Maps

 

[Dee_Ann]

It's not CBand but can you pick up KPLC on RF 7? They have ThisTV with a pretty strong signal. I know they cover part of Southeast TX.

Not sure what part of SETX you are in:
FM and TV Service Area Maps

No, I'm afraid not..

It takes a tall, large antenna which I do not own and to install one would be more difficult than it would be to install a "BUD" (I'm catching on...)...

It may even be more expensive too as I would have to buy a new antenna and a tower to put it on and I think it takes some sort of amplifier too. Not to mention, paying someone to put it up.

I already own the BUD so it's just a matter of moving it from where it is to here some cement and (ugh) shelling out for beer to bribe a neighbor into doing the labor.

I suspect that if I'm patient I can probably get a better quality picture than I would from KPLC with the added bonus of not having to suffer through their horrid commercials.


_____________________________________________________

SOYWENT YEWWO??? I tollu I wanna Soywent GWEEN DAMIT!!!!!!!!!! ​

 

[Dee_Ann]

Dad took me to the lot today. Very, very depressing...
A LOT of expensive things were stolen.

I took my canon and snapped a LOT of pics. I'm sorting through them now and will post relevant pics in a bit.

We took a tape measure and measured the dishes.

There are:

(3) ten foot diameter dishes of unknown make/model. They are missing ALL hardware. They are just big bowls.

(1) eight foot Unimesh dish. Complete. The motor thing is broken and missing parts. The pole it bent over at a 45 degree angle from a hurricane. There is no visible damage to the dish at all.

(1) twelve foot diameter "Dark Star" dish. It is damaged, many of the mesh panels are kicked out or missing. Some of the plastic ribs are broken. It's enormous. The pole mounting stuff is still attached to the back. The lnb is still intact. Moving it would be very, very difficult and repairing it would be difficult and expensive (I would think)..

(1) "HTS Tracker Premier System 50" tuner system. I even found the remote control for it. Inside of it there is a pink cartridge that says "General Instrument Cablehome model VCRS/MOM" and it dated Feb 27, 1995. It appears to have a slot for a smart card in it.

(numerous) as in I didn't bother to count them, lnb thingies. All different sizes, shapes, makes, models. All of them are large, as in the Cband type, not the little pizza sized kinds.


Ding-a-ling already informed me before I went out there that all the parts for the big 10' dishes was long missing. Considering the overgrowth out there, the chances of digging around for the stuff is just not happening. Too dangerous.

As to getting the 8 foot dish out, as I was sure of, I'm even more sure now that it *must* come out in pieces. Dad confirmed that's the only way. It's just nothing less than very, very dangerous out there.

Right now I'm going to clean up, fix something to eat and rest a bit. I need to gather myself a bit, I'm rather depressed from seeing all that mess out there.

I'm going to sort out the photos and resize them to be a bit more size friendly, I took them in hi-res and there's about 2gigabytes worth at 4-6 megabytes per image.

So I'll put some pics up in a few hours.

Oh, and that "Dark Star" dish, I can not find ANY reference to such a brand anywhere online. Google just brings up stuff about stealth airplanes and some stupid sci-fi movie. But this thing IS a "Dark Star", it says so on the lnb cover and I photographed it. Maybe it's a "one off" or custom made dish?

Later gators!!



I brought the tuner and remote home, I'm surprised no one stole it.
Inside of it is a pink box that


I attached a few quickie teasers for now..

__________________________________________________ ___

SOYWENT YEWWO??? I tollu I wanna Soywent GWEEN DAMIT!!!!!!!!!! ​

 

[Anole]

Your first picture is a top view of a nice C-band only LNB, feedhorn, and servo.
It's mounted on a button-hook which extends from the center of the dish.
Doesn't look like the dish will ever see the light of day again, but the bits under the cover seem to be well protected from the elements.
You may find use for some of them in the future.
Don't go crazy, but consider rescuing them.

Of the dishes you've described, the 8'er certainly sounds like the pick of the litter.
More pictures will tell the story.
Don't write off the 10'ers just yet.
If they're not in condition to be restored, at least pick their bones for parts.
In addition to the LNB/feed mentioned above, you may need to rescue a motor, or possibly a mount.
And any 8..10..12 foot long pole would be desirable, too.

I was under the impression this dish repository was in your back yard.
I see it's cross town, instead.
Let me strongly recommend removing your 8' dish from it's mount and taking it out whole.
You can probably rent a pick-up truck or a little stake-bed for an hour to drive it home.
Home Depot and equipment rental places are good choice.
(see links in my signature where I used a large stake-bed truck to move dishes)
The mount can be dropped into the bed of the pickup first if you like, then the dish placed, face up, atop the bed.
Or, make two trips, if that's easier.
Just lash it down and drive slowly.

edit:
just looked at your first picture again.
hard to tell, but it's quite possible that dish is just fine
take some more pix of it.
might just need a light mowing to get the growth out of it.
keep an open mind - it might be a gem among the rubble.

 

[tvropro]

Janiel made the Dark Star back in the early 80's, it was a piece of junk take a pass on it. The reflectors were sub par and warped very easy. Your not going to get good results with a potato chip. I think the 8 foot Unimesh is a 7.5'. Unimesh didn't make an 8 that I know of. If the Unimesh is all together it would be your best bet since everything is there. The 10's would be better for gain but if there missing the J poles or struts that could be an issue. Take all the LNB's and feedhorns and any actuators, spare parts are good .

Good Luck getting into C band. Once it's up and running you'll love it.