What could i do with this dish?
 

Hi, i have a 2.4 metre solid dish here and was going to use it for TVRO but
havn't got round to it as the majority of it is foreign with subtitles and
that doesn't impress me all that much. Just wondering how i might be able to
utilise this dish in the HAM scenario. I am a "Standard" licence in
Australia which entitles me to transmit on most bands excluding 3776 - 3800,
50 - 52 MHz, 420 - 430 MHz, 2300 - 2302 MHz, 3.5 gig, 10gig, and above. Also
can't use WARC bands. So it's a bit limited in the higher part of spectrum
but just wondering if someone could offer some suggestions on what i could
use it for (Except birdbath, fishpond etc lol)

Thanks

Gary
VK3LCD

What could i do with this dish?
 

On Jun 30, 10:38*pm, "Gary Smith" wrote:
Hi, i have a 2.4 metre solid dish here and was going to use it for TVRO but
havn't got round to it as the majority of it is foreign with subtitles and
that doesn't impress me all that much. Just wondering how i might be able to
utilise this dish in the HAM scenario. I am a "Standard" licence in
Australia which entitles me to transmit on most bands excluding 3776 - 3800,
50 - 52 MHz, 420 - 430 MHz, 2300 - 2302 MHz, 3.5 gig, 10gig, and above. Also
can't use WARC bands. So it's a bit limited in the higher part of spectrum
but just wondering if someone could offer some suggestions on what i could
use it for (Except birdbath, fishpond etc lol)

Thanks

Gary
VK3LCD

it would probably be good on the 2300mhz and higher bands. not sure
about how good on 70cm it might be off hand. 10ghz is very popular
here in the states, it even has its own contest. you should probably
try to contact some local microwave guys there and see which bands
have the most activity.

What could i do with this dish?
 

In message , Gary Smith
writes
Hi, i have a 2.4 metre solid dish here and was going to use it for TVRO but
havn't got round to it as the majority of it is foreign with subtitles and
that doesn't impress me all that much. Just wondering how i might be able to
utilise this dish in the HAM scenario. I am a "Standard" licence in
Australia which entitles me to transmit on most bands excluding 3776 - 3800,
50 - 52 MHz, 420 - 430 MHz, 2300 - 2302 MHz, 3.5 gig, 10gig, and above. Also
can't use WARC bands. So it's a bit limited in the higher part of spectrum
but just wondering if someone could offer some suggestions on what i could
use it for (Except birdbath, fishpond etc lol)

Thanks

Gary
VK3LCD

Have you got lots of friends? If so, what about a barbie? [Very popular
in VK, I believe.] Or a wok?
--
Ian

What could i do with this dish?
 

On 6/30/2010 3:38 PM, Gary Smith wrote:
Hi, i have a 2.4 metre solid dish here and was going to use it for TVRO but
havn't got round to it as the majority of it is foreign with subtitles and
that doesn't impress me all that much. Just wondering how i might be able to
utilise this dish in the HAM scenario. I am a "Standard" licence in
Australia which entitles me to transmit on most bands excluding 3776 - 3800,
50 - 52 MHz, 420 - 430 MHz, 2300 - 2302 MHz, 3.5 gig, 10gig, and above. Also
can't use WARC bands. So it's a bit limited in the higher part of spectrum
but just wondering if someone could offer some suggestions on what i could
use it for (Except birdbath, fishpond etc lol)

Thanks

Gary
VK3LCD



chuck a USB WiFi Dongle at the focal point and see how far/many WiFi
routers you can hit?

Regards,
JS

What could i do with this dish?
 

"Gary Smith" wrote in
:

Hi, i have a 2.4 metre solid dish here and was going to use it for
TVRO but havn't got round to it as the majority of it is foreign with
subtitles and that doesn't impress me all that much.

Much of it is also available as streaming internet video.
Free video players are widely available. So, why invest
in the TVRO equiptment.

I like the Wi-Fi DX idea for the dish.

What could i do with this dish?
 

On 08/06/2010 10:52 PM, Gordon wrote:
"Gary wrote in
:

Hi, i have a 2.4 metre solid dish here and was going to use it for
TVRO but havn't got round to it as the majority of it is foreign with
subtitles and that doesn't impress me all that much.

Much of it is also available as streaming internet video.
Free video players are widely available. So, why invest
in the TVRO equiptment.

I like the Wi-Fi DX idea for the dish.

I had a 10 foot horizon to horizon Zenith dish and not only did I catch
news anchors picking their noses but got a lot of shows a week before
they were on regular TV. That was 1990 time frame, so much must have
changed by now. I did pick up purely digital signals which were
detectable as byte length dots and dashes (1's and 0's) but never
recorded one. I have to wonder what those were. Now, in 2010 it may be a
bit of an antique but I will bet there is still some interesting stuff
going around.

What could i do with this dish?
 

A microphone at the focus and an amplifier listens real good!

On Wed, 04 Aug 2010 10:21:45 -0700, John Smith
wrote:

On 6/30/2010 3:38 PM, Gary Smith wrote:
Hi, i have a 2.4 metre solid dish here and was going to use it for TVRO but
havn't got round to it as the majority of it is foreign with subtitles and
that doesn't impress me all that much. Just wondering how i might be able to
utilise this dish in the HAM scenario. I am a "Standard" licence in
Australia which entitles me to transmit on most bands excluding 3776 - 3800,
50 - 52 MHz, 420 - 430 MHz, 2300 - 2302 MHz, 3.5 gig, 10gig, and above. Also
can't use WARC bands. So it's a bit limited in the higher part of spectrum
but just wondering if someone could offer some suggestions on what i could
use it for (Except birdbath, fishpond etc lol)

Thanks

Gary
VK3LCD



chuck a USB WiFi Dongle at the focal point and see how far/many WiFi
routers you can hit?

Regards,
JS
John Ferrell W8CCW

What could i do with this dish?
 

On Aug 11, 2:02*pm, Bill Baka wrote:
On 08/06/2010 10:52 PM, Gordon wrote:

"Gary *wrote in
:

Hi, i have a 2.4 metre solid dish here and was going to use it for
TVRO but havn't got round to it as the majority of it is foreign with
subtitles and that doesn't impress me all that much.

Much of it is also available as streaming internet video.
Free video players are widely available. *So, why invest
in the TVRO equiptment.

I like the Wi-Fi DX idea for the dish.

I had a 10 foot horizon to horizon Zenith dish and not only did I catch
news anchors picking their noses but got a lot of shows a week before
they were on regular TV. That was 1990 time frame, so much must have
changed by now. I did pick up purely digital signals which were
detectable as byte length dots and dashes (1's and 0's) but never
recorded one. I have to wonder what those were. Now, in 2010 it may be a
bit of an antique but I will bet there is still some interesting stuff
going around.

There's a lot of sports programming available in the clear, both
analog and digital. On a far west C-band satellite (135-degrees West,
I think) I could still get the Alaska network digital feeds until
recently in San Diego. ( I took down my 10-foot C-band dish a few
years ago, so my knowledge is getting stale.)

Much info is available on skyvision.com and satelliteguys.us . Also
see lyngsat.com and sadoun.com . The science of cataloging what's
available is not perfected, as the programmers don't care that we know
what's on -- unless we're paying customers. :-(

The fun is building the gear, especially antennas and mounts. I hand-
built a geometrically-correct polar mount out of the pipe from a
DirecTV wall mount and an ordinary TV antenna rotor. It tracked the
arc perfectly for a small Ku dish. I still have it and I'll post a
picture if anybody wants to see it.

I hope this helps.

"Sal"

What could i do with this dish?
 

I would like to see the picture. If no one else is interested you can
email the picture. My email is in the clear.


On Thu, 12 Aug 2010 20:33:16 -0700 (PDT), "Sal M. Onella"
wrote:


There's a lot of sports programming available in the clear, both
analog and digital. On a far west C-band satellite (135-degrees West,
I think) I could still get the Alaska network digital feeds until
recently in San Diego. ( I took down my 10-foot C-band dish a few
years ago, so my knowledge is getting stale.)

Much info is available on skyvision.com and satelliteguys.us . Also
see lyngsat.com and sadoun.com . The science of cataloging what's
available is not perfected, as the programmers don't care that we know
what's on -- unless we're paying customers. :-(

The fun is building the gear, especially antennas and mounts. I hand-
built a geometrically-correct polar mount out of the pipe from a
DirecTV wall mount and an ordinary TV antenna rotor. It tracked the
arc perfectly for a small Ku dish. I still have it and I'll post a
picture if anybody wants to see it.

I hope this helps.

"Sal"
John Ferrell W8CCW

What could i do with this dish?
 

On Aug 13, 10:27*am, John Ferrell wrote:
I would like to see the picture. If no one else is interested you can
email the picture. My email is in the clear.

On Thu, 12 Aug 2010 20:33:16 -0700 (PDT), "Sal M. Onella"





wrote:
There's a lot of sports programming available in the clear, both
analog and digital. *On a far west C-band satellite (135-degrees West,
I think) I could still get the Alaska network digital feeds until
recently in San Diego. ( I took down my 10-foot C-band dish a few
years ago, so my knowledge is getting stale.)

Much info is available on skyvision.com and satelliteguys.us . *Also
see lyngsat.com and sadoun.com . *The science of cataloging what's
available is not perfected, as the programmers don't care that we know
what's on -- unless we're paying customers. *:-(

The fun is building the gear, especially antennas and mounts. * I hand-
built a geometrically-correct polar mount out of the pipe from a
DirecTV wall mount and an ordinary TV antenna rotor. *It tracked the
arc perfectly for a small Ku dish. *I still have it and I'll post a
picture if anybody wants to see it.

I hope this helps.

"Sal"

John Ferrell W8CCW

OK. I dug it out and I'll snap some pix later.

Questions: Do you understand the geometry involved in a polar mount?
How about the concept of declination, whereby you compensate for the
fact that you are not on the Equator? When I bought my 10-foot dish
(1986) it came with instructions that included a table of declination
vs. latitude and a corresponding adjustment scale on the mount
itself. With a do-it-yourself dish, you have to "do it yourself." hi
hi.

I ask because the web has a number of tutorials on the subject of
backyard dishes. If you don't already have the knowledge, you may
wish to search now. Not a big deal, but if you fail to apply the
correction, you can't track the arc faithfully.

On the side: We are discussing herein a polar mount, whose operation
adjusts azimuth and elevation simultaneously. There is also an AZ-EL
mount that permits you to manually aim at each satellite, based on
pointing info derived for your location. Simpler, but not much fun
to build.

"Sal"
KD6VKW
(Vicious Killer Weasel)

What could i do with this dish?
 

On Aug 13, 10:27*am, John Ferrell wrote:
I would like to see the picture. If no one else is interested you can
email the picture. My email is in the clear.

John Ferrell W8CCW

OK, I sent two pictures in a private email to your address on
qrz.com. For some reason, I only see part of your email address
here. (My email provider discontinued Newsgroups this year and I'm
still getting the hang of Google Groups. Maybe I should try Yahoo
Groups or pay for a real NG server.)

"Sal"

What could i do with this dish?
 

On Sat, 14 Aug 2010 22:27:13 -0700 (PDT), "Sal M. Onella"
wrote:

or pay for a real NG server.

Try:
http://www.forteinc.com/apn/index.php

for $3 a month you get 12 Gigabytes download capacity.

At the rate I draw from that capacity (in the Kilobytes) I should have
to pay a penny a year instead - but they don't offer that kind of
plan.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

What could i do with this dish?
 

I got them!
I think it will be a while but I am slowly accumulating stuff for the
project. I am especially interested in how mechanical problems are
handled.

I use a few concrete blocks on my antenna projects too!

Thanks for the info,

On Sat, 14 Aug 2010 22:27:13 -0700 (PDT), "Sal M. Onella"
wrote:

On Aug 13, 10:27*am, John Ferrell wrote:
I would like to see the picture. If no one else is interested you can
email the picture. My email is in the clear.

John Ferrell W8CCW

OK, I sent two pictures in a private email to your address on
qrz.com. For some reason, I only see part of your email address
here. (My email provider discontinued Newsgroups this year and I'm
still getting the hang of Google Groups. Maybe I should try Yahoo
Groups or pay for a real NG server.)

"Sal"
John Ferrell W8CCW

What could i do with this dish?
 

On Aug 15, 11:48*am, John Ferrell wrote:
I got them!
I think it will be a while but I am slowly accumulating stuff for the
project. I am especially interested in how mechanical problems are
handled.

I use a few concrete blocks on my antenna projects too!

Thanks for the info,

John Ferrell W8CCW

You're welcome. The OP said his dish was 2.5m; how big is yours? Or
do you have one yet?

I had a 2m solid dish for a few years (unused) and finally gave it
away. That thing was heavy. I never had the whole mount for it --
just a tripod frame off the back of the dish -- so I can't offer any
direct suggestions. One idea, if you have a communications company
nearby, like the area cable-tv provider, maybe a friendly tech will
let you into their yard, where you can examine how their dishes
mount. Just a thought.

My other dish, a ten-foot mesh unit with which I watched premium
programs for fifteen years, is now in EME service a few miles from
here. Are you thinking EME?

"Sal"

What could i do with this dish?
 

----snip2save-----------
Recieving them is one thing but transmitting a good signal
back to them is another, so I am finding out the hard way :-(


chuck a USB WiFi Dongle at the focal point and see how
far/many WiFi routers you can hit?

Regards,
JS





--
Quote "Get SSL VPN services now, KEEP Government OUT of your
business... "

What could i do with this dish?
 

On 6/3/2011 8:04 AM, moronsbegone wrote:
----snip2save-----------
Recieving them is one thing but transmitting a good signal
back to them is another, so I am finding out the hard way :-(


chuck a USB WiFi Dongle at the focal point and see how
far/many WiFi routers you can hit?

Regards,
JS



I used to have a 1 watt USB dongle, came from china ...

I am thinking you might still be able to locate one on ebay?

Anyway, let me know what you find. I am going to be setting up a long
range link in the near future, for a friend.

Regards,
JS

What could i do with this dish?
 

On Fri, 03 Jun 2011 10:04:13 -0500, moronsbegone
wrote:

----snip2save-----------
Recieving them is one thing but transmitting a good signal
back to them is another, so I am finding out the hard way :-(

Could the relationship between time and distance problem be impacting
performance? Every other influencing parameter appears to be a
constant. Lengthening the timeout on your end might provide a
solution.

What could i do with this dish?
 

John Smith wrote in
:

On 6/3/2011 8:04 AM, moronsbegone wrote:
----snip2save-----------
Recieving them is one thing but transmitting a good signal
back to them is another, so I am finding out the hard way
:-(


chuck a USB WiFi Dongle at the focal point and see how
far/many WiFi routers you can hit?

Regards,
JS



I used to have a 1 watt USB dongle, came from china ...

I am thinking you might still be able to locate one on
ebay?

Anyway, let me know what you find. I am going to be
setting up a long range link in the near future, for a
friend.

Regards,
JS



I appreciate the reply, it seems my Alfa ½ watt [bs-rating=
1/10 watt] is making the grade with 4 access points reliably
so it's just the little boy ego in me that seems spoiled when
110 access points are showing up and only a handful can hear
me. Then again it's real crowded here and channel bleeding or
some other 'Over crowded' phenomenon is dissing my male ego. I
sort of feel like a dumb truck driver running 1500 watts to
talk to the driver behind me9 In respect to the industry and
moral conscience I do not want to splatter my neighbors with a
gazillion watts and make their 5 bar connections slow because
of me and rf splatter. You guys know so much more then I it
isn't funny, don't want to sound like a moron but this "Dish"
theory is a hidden treasure right under everyone's nose and it
amazes me that just putting a retired Dish Network disk 13"
behind the Alfa USB WiFi with the 3 DB gain Vertical ground
antenna on it gives me a 5 bar signal from what used to be a
1. The reason I am picking on this one AP is that I have the
owners blessing to use it, so why not focus on the legal one.
Sure I am willing to hack a stranger's one if I have to, but
here is a case where I don't, so I won't. But up till now his
signal was week, now it's good, but experimenting with the
other unsecured AP's there are some that are 3 bars and can
not get a handshake for more then 10 seconds at 1 MBPS
Then PWAffffffft!!! I am bumped off then on then off then on…
Weird I say.
But it has all the symptoms of an Elephant base station, all
ears no mouth, and I am Irish I don't take custom to things
that way, generally the other way around LoL.
But I don't want to be a CB Rambo moron and ruin it for
everyone else; I am on line at a steady 54 MBPS right now so
why bother. Just Ego I guess or interest in the science maybe.
By the way the Dish is Indoors!!! I used to be a HAM, tech
license but let it laps years ago. Can't stand the FCC's
attitude.

What could i do with this dish?
 

Registered User wrote in
:

On Fri, 03 Jun 2011 10:04:13 -0500, moronsbegone
wrote:

----snip2save-----------
Recieving them is one thing but transmitting a good signal
back to them is another, so I am finding out the hard way
:-(

Could the relationship between time and distance problem be
impacting performance? Every other influencing parameter
appears to be a constant. Lengthening the timeout on your
end might provide a solution.

I appreciate the reply, it seems my Alfa ½ watt [bs-rating=
1/10 watt] is making the grade with 4 access points reliably
so it's just the little boy ego in me that seems spoiled when
110 access points are showing up and only a handful can hear
me. Then again it's real crowded here and channel bleeding or
some other 'Over crowded' phenomenon is dissing my male ego. I
sort of feel like a dumb truck driver running 1500 watts to
talk to the driver behind me! In respect to the industry and
moral conscience I do not want to splatter my neighbors with a
gazillion watts and make their 5 bar connections slow because
of me and rf or binary packet splatter/collisions. You guys
know so much more then I it isn't funny, don't want to sound
like a moron but this "Dish" theory is a hidden treasure right
under everyone's nose and it amazes me that just putting a
retired Dish Network disk 13" behind the Alfa USB WiFi with
the 3 DB gain Vertical ground antenna on it gives me a 5 bar
signal from what used to be a 1. The reason I am picking on
this one AP is that I have the owners blessing to use it, so
why not focus on the legal one. Sure I am willing to hack a
stranger's one if I have to, but here is a case where I don't,
so I won't. But up till now his signal was week, now it's
good, but experimenting with the other unsecured AP's there
are some that are 3 bars and can not get a handshake for more
then 10 seconds at 1 MBPS
Then PWAffffffft!!! I am bumped off then on then off then on…
Weird I say.
But it has all the symptoms of an Elephant base station, all
ears no mouth, and I am Irish I don't take custom to things
that way, generally the other way around LoL.
But I don't want to be a CB Rambo moron and ruin it for
everyone else; I am on line at a steady 54 MBPS right now so
why bother. Just Ego I guess or interest in the science maybe.
By the way the Dish is Indoors!!! I used to be a HAM, tech
license but let it laps years ago. I can't stand the FCC's
attitude. Somewhere in the registry setting I can set the
"TimeToLive" string to 128 ms is that what you mean?
I know IP stuff [it's my dreaded job] but the microwave stuff
you guys smoke me.