What to do with old Dish Antennas?

[iafirebuff]

Just curious, what should I do with my extra Dish 500, and 18" Dish and RCA DSS antennas? Are they good for anything? Thanks in advance!

 

[Shawn95GT]

I still have a few of those and they are piled in my junk trailer aside from the Voom dish which is still faithfully pointed to 61.5 (but is disconnected).

If you find that you like to listen to the audio on the Nimiq sats... or maybe you are a big fan of NASA / GOLTV it might be worth fixing of of these dishes with a circular LNB on 110 or whatever and connecting it to your system via one of the un-used ports on you diSEqC switch. For most it isn't a big deal to motor over for these channels.

If it wasn't 30+ feet up I'd have taken the Voom dish down long ago.

 

[iafirebuff]

Maybe I should set them up like the pic of the old guy with about 30 dishes on his front porch

 

[Mr Tony]

Thread on what you can get

http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=34131

I have probably 15 dishes (D500, D300, DirecTv) at my house. I take one with me when I go to the lake and aim for 91 for the audio (the dish is bolted to a 4x4 timber thats about 15 inches long) because radio at the lake sucks

 

[iafirebuff]

I have given my inlaws a few dishes - they use it when they are out in their motor home or on their cabin cruiser on the Mississippi River. That leaves me with a few extras. I might try the audio route with them

 

[PSB]

Just curious, what should I do with my extra Dish 500, and 18" Dish and RCA DSS antennas? Are they good for anything? Thanks in advance!

I have a few suggestions what can be done with DishNotwork reflectors, most I could not post here, but here is one

 

[iafirebuff]

Good One!

 

[voomvoom]

Well, I for one believe in change. I remember when it was impossible to have/use a dish as small as 18". Then came stronger satellite's, as well as better electronics. Who's to say they won't make even stronger satellite's, except this time for regular ku instead of DBS, so we would be able to use all these 18" dishes laying around. Who knows what's in store?

Al

 

[digiblur]

Well, I for one believe in change. I remember when it was impossible to have/use a dish as small as 18". Then came stronger satellite's, as well as better electronics. Who's to say they won't make even stronger satellite's, except this time for regular ku instead of DBS, so we would be able to use all these 18" dishes laying around. Who knows what's in store?

Al

Someone could make a KU band satellite as strong as the DBS band ones but then you couldn't space them 2 degrees apart and pick them up with a 18 inch dish. All of the signals would be on top of each other when using that size dish. E* has 110 and 119 separated by 9 degrees for a reason. Think of the spacing.... 129, 119, 110, 101, 91, 82, 72.5. The 77 does throw a wrench in the system but that's a Mexico slot.

 

[Mr Tony]

rumour is they are going to test 77 to see if its possible to do 4.5 degree spacing

 

[WyrTwister]

Just curious, what should I do with my extra Dish 500, and 18" Dish and RCA DSS antennas? Are they good for anything? Thanks in advance!

Sell them on EBay ?

Wyr

 

[global0]

So, reading this thread and this one: "http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=34131", it looks like 82, 91, 110 and 119 have some good audio channels. Would it be possible to point two D-500 dual LNB dishes to these sats and build a nice digital audio setup? can they be routed through a regular 4-port DISEqC switch?

 

[Mr Tony]

119 & 91 have most of the audio channels. It is very possible to set it up that way. The only issue is you have to use either DirecTV LNB's or the older Dish Legacy LNB's.

You can't use a Legacy Twin (the bigger LNB). The receiver doesn't know how to deal with it. I know you can use a DishPro, but there is some changes to the setup you need to do.

I have a dish at 119 and a dish at 91 connected with a 22k switch (its an old 4x4 multiswitch). This way I only need to tie up one Diseqc port and can get 2 different dishes (its set up as port 4 22k on for 119 and port 4 22k off for 91)

If you want to use all 4 satellite slots, you could but that would take up all 4 ports of the switch

 

[visiter555]

Just curious, what should I do with my extra Dish 500, and 18" Dish and RCA DSS antennas? Are they good for anything? Thanks in advance!

The FTA people love to buy them...

 

[norman]

119 & 91 have most of the audio channels. It is very possible to set it up that way. The only issue is you have to use either DirecTV LNB's or the older Dish Legacy LNB's.

You can't use a Legacy Twin (the bigger LNB). The receiver doesn't know how to deal with it. I know you can use a DishPro, but there is some changes to the setup you need to do.

I have a dish at 119 and a dish at 91 connected with a 22k switch (its an old 4x4 multiswitch). This way I only need to tie up one Diseqc port and can get 2 different dishes (its set up as port 4 22k on for 119 and port 4 22k off for 91)

If you want to use all 4 satellite slots, you could but that would take up all 4 ports of the switch

Ice,
Are you talking about using the OLD Direct tv dish & lnb hooked to a FTA receiver?
I have a close friend that has NO FM at her greenhouse. So I was thinking about putting one up.
I do know that if you use a turned off dish system that the preview ch plays some perty good jazz.

Norman

 

[global0]

.....
I have a dish at 119 and a dish at 91 connected with a 22k switch (its an old 4x4 multiswitch). This way I only need to tie up one Diseqc port and can get 2 different dishes (its set up as port 4 22k on for 119 and port 4 22k off for 91)

If you want to use all 4 satellite slots, you could but that would take up all 4 ports of the switch

I thought that I'd got it, but the "22k switch" and "DISEqC" confused me. how does your setup look like? Sorry about the ignorance ;(

 

[iafirebuff]

I think once I get my FTA setup and going, I will play around with some of the other satellites, and make a dedicated "satellite radio" type setup. THanks for all the ideas!

 

[Das Hammer]

We had a D500 dish that we took the mount off of and bolted it to the front (after some modification). This produced a "handle" that you could hold onto while being pulled behind the ATV in the snow. It was a lot of fun!

 

[iafirebuff]

A toboggen! Yes! That is what I will do

 

[Mr Tony]

Ice,
Are you talking about using the OLD Direct tv dish & lnb hooked to a FTA receiver?
I have a close friend that has NO FM at her greenhouse. So I was thinking about putting one up.
I do know that if you use a turned off dish system that the preview ch plays some perty good jazz.

Norman

correct

The CD audio channels (950-982) are FTA and all you need is a FTA recever and an old DirecTv dish (or DIsh 500 with old Dual Legacy LNB's...cant have a switch built inside)

Works really good