PDRUNEN wrote:
I am starting to see the RCA's direct TV disk showing up for a fair price at
garage sales. I have picked up about 3 of them so far.

What I have learned on the internet is that the sates are around 12GHz and the
down conversion is about 1 GHz.

I recall a ham band around 10GHz and wander if anyone is doing work with them
on the ham bands?

Yes, and W1GHZ has an on-line book about using them as 10ghz antennas:

http://www.qsl.net/n1bwt/contents.htm

In the Twin Cities MN area we have nearly 2 dozen people on 10ghz, most with
various types of DSS dishes. If you got the feed horn with the dish, you can
sometimes drill it out to 3/4" for 10ghz.

How much gain would this antenna get at 12GHz. I believe the diameter is about
19 or so inches.

At 10ghz we typicly get in the area of 31-33dBi gain from the 19" dishes.

Glen, KC0IYT