Fun To Be Had With a 10-Foot Satellite Dish? 386
An anonymous reader writes "I'm moving to a rural community in the central United States. On the property is a satellite dish in excess of 3 meters in diameter that seems to still be in excellent condition. I already enjoy shortwave radio and was wondering what interesting TV feeds I might be able to catch with the dish. What kind of equipment would I need and how much should I expect to spend? If it's not useful for that purpose, what other fun projects might I use it for?"
How I use my parabolic dish... (Score:5, Interesting)
TV feeds to the TV companies (Score:5, Interesting)
use it as a skottelbraai (Score:1, Interesting)
a south african invention: put a gas cooker underneath it and prepare meals for ten! :-)
Attach it to a Tesla coil. (Score:2, Interesting)
Attached it to the output terminal of a large tesla coil, and see if you can cause electric arcs to form between the ground and metallic objects, at a distance.
Moon bounce (Score:5, Interesting)
My boss at the last place I worked had a number of extremely large dishes that he used for moon bounce: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EME_(communications) [wikipedia.org]
Interesting stuff. I don't know how active and interesting the conversations are (as I understand there are relatively few people that do this) but from a technical perspective I think it's interesting to bounce a signal off the moon and listen to the result...
I've been told that his medium sized dish (approx 10' I suppose) worked best for this purpose...
I'm no expert on this; have only run into it before at that job...
Get a second... (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Get a second satellite dish.
2. Attach a bar between the two, facing each other like this: (-)
3. Turn this setup onto its side.
4. Then mount the base of one dish, horizontally, so that one is facing up to the other, which is facing down.
5. Using a roll of 1-2' sheet metal (sheet aluminum works for me).
6. Attach one end of the sheet metal to the ground with a pair of small metal tent stakes.
7. Attach the other side of this to the dish that is facing up.
8. Spray paint the dishes & landing ramp the colour of your choice, if desired.
9. Presto!
When complete, you will have yourself a nice flying saucer in the yard, to be the envy of all your neighbors and friends.
At least, that's what I did once with two of three old satellite dishes in my yard...
Cheers!
--Stak
Radio Astronomy (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_astronomy [wikipedia.org]
http://www.nrao.edu/index.php/learn/radioastronomy [nrao.edu]
http://www.radio-astronomy.net/ [radio-astronomy.net]
Solar furnace? (Score:4, Interesting)
Solar Concentrator & Generator (Score:2, Interesting)
Solar concentrator (Score:4, Interesting)
Alien signals from space (Score:5, Interesting)
Whatever you do, don't make any broadcasts to alien vessels.
Also, any signals you receive from the alien's should not be made public,
or else YOU and your satelite dish will dissapear curtesy of secret UFO coverup agencies etc.
Eat this message.
-paul
Use it for what it is... great dish (Score:5, Interesting)
There are many signals you can receive from space and 10ft is perfect for that.
With some equipment (preamplifier, receiver that can do 2.3GHz) you can receive signals from interplanetary sondes and classified satellites.
It's completely new world and if you enjoyed shortwave radio, you will love this.
For list of signals you can receive check http://www.uhf-satcom.com/ - 10ft will do L-band, S-band, C-band and X-band with correct feed.
Re:How I use my parabolic dish... (Score:2, Interesting)
Sound Mirror (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the astronomers there told me that while calibrating the main 78m dish he started hearing childrens voices. They had coincidently pointed the dish at a local school and were able to hear everything said.
So may I suggest using the dish for a bit of covert surveillance of neighbours.
Audio Eavesdropping (Score:5, Interesting)
A large radio telescope makes a very good audio dish (the wavelengths are similar). If you can point it to the horizon, you might be able to hear conversations a mile or more off. Of course, it works both ways - they can hear you well too.
I was once working on the receiver of a dish on the Potomac, while the dish was at "service" (i.e., pointed to the horizon, in this case over the water). When a sailboat would go through the beam, I could barely see it, but could hear the creak of the rigging and the slosh of the water, as if I was on it.
Re:If you're looking for fun, you're doing it wron (Score:2, Interesting)
apparently every farmer in texas has an old snowmobile somewhere in their possession. an old tractor seat (with improvised belt) got bolted to the inside of the dish and someone came up w/ 30' of rope for towing.
we never were able to flip it over, but airborne? yes.
---
petes-brain.com [petes-brain.com] - it must be a scary place in there...
Re:How I use my parabolic dish... (Score:3, Interesting)
Works great if you also happen to have a Silo on the property.
You could also use it for a really long wifi shot.
If you are a HAM you could use it for EME shoots.
Or you could use it for for home radio astronomy.
And there does seem to be a good number of free channels you can get but they are a little odd.
Re:Free transmissions (Score:5, Interesting)
Also try dishpointer.com, you use google maps to locate your property and it shows your lat/long and the elevation required for the sat, it also works out how high obstacles can be at a given distance.
Re:Broadcast a cryptic signal for years (Score:3, Interesting)
Since governments don't actually acknowledge number stations, what would be the harm of starting your own?
Re:Astronomy? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think you're overstating the case.
First, the focal point isn't so much a "point" as a reasonably sized zone.
Second, the tinfoil itself isn't going to sit precisely flat and perfect; you're going to double or triple the size of the zone, easily.
Third, you're going to get some loss to wrinkling.
Fourth, you'll lose a good amount of energy to whatever shadow your cooking object casts.
A highly wet object (brined/marinated meat) is going to cook for quite a bit in that spot without "bursting into flames."
What you'll get is going to look a lot like this [wikipedia.org]. Given that one is actually mirrored and is maybe 5-6ft diameter, back-of-the-napkin math says a 10-ft aluminum foil slapdash job should be in the right ballpark.
Idea (Score:2, Interesting)
Worlds biggest stir-fry?
Re:Moon bounce (Score:5, Interesting)
Moon bounce is the pretty cool. I'm not an expert either, but I am a HAM and have spent quite a few nights outside with friends playing around with a large (handmade) dish. Sure, moon bounce isn't real popular, but there is something very satisfying about being able to bounce a signal off the moon onto some far reaching part of the earth.
I don't have a powerful enough radio to do it very well, but we could still listen to other people quite well and every once in a while could make contact. Of course, we weren't using a nice manufactured dish like that, but had constructed one out of PVC pipe and wire mesh. I bet a real dish would do a lot better than what we constructed.
Re:Free transmissions (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Astronomy? (Score:2, Interesting)
If you're actually interested in building something like this, check out http://www.cockeyed.com/incredible/solardish/dish01.shtml [cockeyed.com] which documents the process he went through to build the "light sharpener." For spoilers of it setting things on fire skip to the last page.
Re:Have Fun with the neighbors (Score:4, Interesting)