[AT] OT big satellite dishes

[charlie hill]

Ken, I'm 90+% sure I read it on some site like ATIS (not saying it was here) 
and it was two guys talking about doing it.  Apparently it was a fairly 
common thing.  My guess is maybe they disconnected the mount so they could 
swing them around and aim them at each other.  I can't think of a pair of 
locations that would allow two dishes to be aimed at one another while still 
hooked to the mount unless of course one of them was in space.  Yep they 
made spun aluminum dishes.  I can't remember the name brand but they were 
kind of the Cadillac of the industry for a while.   A friend of mine used to 
do a lot of sat. TV work.  He still does but it's all small dishes now. 
Anyway he had several of those aluminum dishes from systems he had taken out 
for people.  They were about the only one's he would keep.
I tried to talk him out of one but wasn't successful.

As for the solar collector, I've played with that a bit myself.  Aluminum 
foil tape like HVAC guys use on duct work will make quick work of turning an 
18" dish into a collector and it will put out a lot of heat.
I'm thinking a metal can painted black with a copper or aluminum tubing coil 
inside and mounted at the focal point would make a fair water heater. 
Haven't tried it yet.

Actually what got me to thinking about the guys talking between dishes was 
brought on pondering something else.   I was wondering if antenna's placed 
in the focal points of dishes and aimed at each other would work for 
transmitting low power radio signals between to line of sight points.

Charlie

-----Original Message----- 
From: Ken Knierim
Sent: Saturday, February 12, 2011 9:38 AM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] OT big satellite dishes

There were quite a number of those dishes that were made from fiberglass
with a metallized coating, and some were made from (I think) spun aluminum.
At one point (about 1980) my uncle got some plans to make a 12' one of them
using plywood with a tin foil coating on the reflector (needed larger dishes
further north and also helped signal to noise ratios). I helped him build
the framework for the ground mount and he used it successfully for several
years. With the standard polar mount (pivot axis aimed at Polaris, the north
star), about the only way a couple folks would be able to aim those dishes
at each other is if they were in a direct east-west line from each other. A
few feet off of this or any wrong adjustment would make it impossible, but
yes, it could be done under the "right" conditions. Kinda sounds like
geekdom "braggin' rights" to me. :)

I used a small one (18"?) a few years back to help my daughter make a solar
collector. I've wanted to get one of the 8' aluminum ones for a bigger (and
more viable) solar collector, but haven't had enough "round tuits" yet.

Ken in AZ


On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 7:02 AM, Mike Sloane <mikesloane at verizon.net> wrote:

> All of the BUDs (Big Ugly Dish) that I ever owned or saw were
> essentially a metal skeleton with wire mesh of some kind between the
> ribs. They were excellent radio reflectors but I don't think they would
> do much as sound collectors. The positioning is/was done by a linear
> motor arm that swings the dish through an arc that starts pretty near
> the horizon and ends up pointing pretty high. To arrange two BUDs so
> that they would be pointing at each other would require removing all of
> the critical alignment functions and moving them around until they were
> properly aligned.
>
> I guess it is certainly *possible* to do what you suggested, but the
> same thing could be accomplished just as easily by just hollering back
> and forth or using the telephone. :-)
>
> Mike
>
> On 2/12/2011 8:40 AM, charlie hill wrote:
> > I'm hoping someone can confirm something I remember reading from years
> past.
> >
> > If I remember right, back in the days of the big 8' and larger sat.
> dishes.
> > I read where farmers
> > who lived a mile or two apart but with line of sight between them would
> aim
> > their dishes at each other,
> > stand out in front of the dish and carry on voice conversations.  Did I
> > dream that or is it really possible?
> >
> > Charlie
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
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