Adventures in dish hunting and what we find

[osu1991]

I think if you look back a couple of pages, that is identical to the 7.5 ft unimesh I brought home last week. I need the temp to drop down from the 96 degrees we have been stuck at before I do too much. I am getting anxious to put her back in service. That looks like another great find.

 

[linuxman]

Hey OSU!

You are right. They both look like the same dish.

Well I stopped by the house to look at the big dish I saw this morning. Briefly talked to the owner. He says he still has the receiver, and everything still works except that he ran into the dish with the tractor while mowing.

He and his family were just getting ready to head out, so I snapped some pics and measured, but there is no hope for the dish and not much for the receiver. He said they switched to DirecTV shortly after it came out which would have been about 1995. I don't think the 4DTV's were starting to be built until around 1998. Not much chance that it will be a great receiver find. The dish's back is broken and ready for the recycle yard.

I am supposed to go back and talk to him tomorrow evening. I will pull the feed-horn cover off and see what is in there. If it has a co-rotor or good LNBs, I might offer to dismantle it for him to get that and the actuator, then take the rest to the recycle place and sell the aluminum.

It is a 10 foot Unimesh.

Here are the pics. Very sad!



And the hunt continues.

Fred

 

[JEDR]

Hello, New on this. Which size dish is recommende for Puerto Rico. (110&119). Is 1.2 Meter good enough?

 

[gabshere]

yeah thats a sad dish several have went down i have one in the back yard that is like your's cable concepts thats has been through the ringer i'm hoping to make a stationary out of it.

 

[stogie5150]

Too bad you don't live closer, I know where there's a 10' Winegard already pulled out of the ground, just sitting, going to waste.

It is a fantastic looking dish, too.

 

[gabshere]

feedhorn arms should be good , mount? , feedhorn recover what you can
sadly there are several here like it and if the scrappers ever figure it out they will be gone too...

 

[linuxman]

feedhorn arms should be good , mount? , feedhorn recover what you can
sadly there are several here like it and if the scrappers ever figure it out they will be gone too...

I'll find out this evening what is recoverable. Hopefully it will have a good feed-horn and maybe some decent LNBs. If the receiver is strictly analog, I hope it is a nice one.

Fred

 

[stogie5150]

I'll find out this evening what is recoverable. Hopefully it will have a good feed-horn and maybe some decent LNBs. If the receiver is strictly analog, I hope it is a nice one.

Fred

Don't count on making money scrapping it, I just sold the Raydx that I took down awhile back, the one that was all bent up and had mesh missing, the frame and mount sold for a grand total of 37.00. Almost not worth taking it apart. Brother Tron did get the mesh that was left to help him fix his Paraclipse, so it wasn't a total lost cause.

I kept the hub plates to make homebrew dish mounts with.

 

[linuxman]

Don't count on making money scrapping it,

I hadn't planned on making anything out of the scrap. I'm just trying to figure where the break-over point and return on investment of time and energy expended is. I don't think there is an answer.

I'll probably just go with my instincts, and hope he has a friend with a good dish or receiver.

Fred

 

[gabshere]

yes mostly its the contacts gained , i didn't think there would be much gained money wise but , with the scrapping becomming popular, figure they will disappear quickly.

but i never figured any of us in it for the money , so if you can scrap a damaged dish and get something out of it , thats great , i was just worried about good dishes going to the scrap pile cause someone wanter a few $$ or no one wanted to save it.

i will try to save several that i don't plan on putting up i just have to find a place to store them

 

[linuxman]

Went down to the broken Unimesh a while ago.

Got a GI 2750R analog receiver and remote plus blue VCII module that the battery is still putting out 3.7Vs on. Will have to replace the battery soon on that.

Also got a pretty nice 18" Von Weise actuator with very little rust on the outside. Will have to check the inside.

The feed-horn was just an ordinary non-adjustable Chaparral C-Band feed-horn with a Drake 45 degree LNB on it. But I got the feed-horn cover and cover plate which are still in good shape. I will go back Saturday morning and finish up. The only things left that are of any value are the mounting ring and support arms. The rest goes to the recycle yard.

Fred

 

[linuxman]

It seems that no good deed goes un-rewarded.

Stopped by a house with a dish that I had seen a week ago.

The house is owned by a young guy who just bought it as a starter home. He says the guy who owned it used to work at a Satellite place.

They had a 7.5 foot Perfect 10 in the back yard which had a co-rotor on it which I could see from the street. No feed-horn cover on it, but the connectors were coated with the tar/tape stuff to keep out moisture.

The dish was beat up pretty badly from hail, but could have been resurrected, but the kid wanted to scrap it and pick up a few bucks.

He let me have the Co-Rotor with LNBs and the 18" Von-Weise actuator on it. I stayed and helped him take the dish loose from the pole.

The Co-Rotor, LNBs, and actuator all look like almost new.

Here are some pics of the co-rotor and LNBs:



I found another jewel today, more on that later.

You never know what you will find if you just get out there and find them.

Fred

 

[gabshere]

you dog thats like new wish i could hunt

well the motor will push it over but won't pull it back , but it does count ... i just have to try to remember how far it can go before the crossover point of the weight ...
i did notice that the one i pulled off it the HD model so it might be worth fixing
great find Fred stock up the storage room .... we might place all the extras there

 

[linuxman]

Thanks George,

Well maybe you can put the pieces together, and come up with one that will do the job. You should have everything there to make it work.

I am stocking it as fast as I can.

Fred

 

[gabshere]

well its moving & counting for now so i might leave it and order a new reed sensor , if i can find it priced right. its a good thing too cause the motor swap i don't think would have fit

i will order a new 24 HD too for my 10 fter my von wiese is acting up only wants to move 1/2 the arc .... its the one i worked on so i guess i fixed it for good hmmm wonder if theres something else i could fix

 

[linuxman]

I finally found an 8.5 footer.

I think this one might be a real diamond in the rough. I found it on the roof of a sports bar, and have been talking to them about it for 3 weeks now. First had to find out who owned it, the bar owner, or the property owner, then had to find out if it was ok to take it down, blah, blah, blah. At this point I hadn't even seen it up close. I didn't get the word it was ok to get until yesterday, then I went down this morning and got on the roof for inspection.

It is an 8.5 foot solid aluminum. In the places in the back where the paint has peeled away, I can see small circles like tree rings, but can feel no ridges. I don't know whether it is spun aluminum or hydro-formed, but it is definitely solid aluminum, and pretty thick at that.

It appears to be in excellent shape. No dents, dings, or warpage. One support arm has rusted through as you can see. It should make an excellent dish.

My guys and I will take it down tomorrow morning and bring it home.

Here are some pics:





I'm thinking it will suck signal down as well as the Birdview. Maybe even better.

I have to clean it up, paint it, and make a support arm, but that isn't a big deal.

Now for some decisions.

Do I replace the 7.5 footer on the side of the building with this? That is a 3.5 inch pipe it sits on. Or do I wait and put it up as a 5th Bud?

Do I paint it black, charcoal gray, or white?

Do I use it for the 4DTV which is currently connected to the 7.5 footer, or switch the Pansat to this one, and connect the 4DTV to the Birdview?

Final question!

Does anyone have a clue who made this dish and what model it is? There are no markings or identification on it that I can see.

Thanks,

Fred

 

[chefwan]

7.5 ft unimesh

Guys I Think Im Going To Mount The 7.5 Unimesh Was Thinking About Some FTA with that dishim going to patch the panel you see tore there and try to mount it sometime this weekend if not sometime next weekend. i want to add KU later on to it. tell me what you think of the dish

 

[chefwan]

linuxman you've got another one. you keep this up they are going to mistaken you with an uplink for DISH !! lmao just kidding keep them coming get as many as u can before the scrap yard gets um

I finally found an 8.5 footer.

I think this one might be a real diamond in the rough. I found it on the roof of a sports bar, and have been talking to them about it for 3 weeks now. First had to find out who owned it, the bar owner, or the property owner, then had to find out if it was ok to take it down, blah, blah, blah. At this point I hadn't even seen it up close. I didn't get the word it was ok to get until yesterday, then I went down this morning and got on the roof for inspection.

It is an 8.5 foot solid aluminum. In the places in the back where the paint has peeled away, I can see small circles like tree rings, but can feel no ridges. I don't know whether it is spun aluminum or hydro-formed, but it is definitely solid aluminum, and pretty thick at that.

It appears to be in excellent shape. No dents, dings, or warpage. One support arm has rusted through as you can see. It should make an excellent dish.

My guys and I will take it down tomorrow morning and bring it home.

Here are some pics:

View attachment 18599 View attachment 18600 View attachment 18601

View attachment 18602 View attachment 18603

I'm thinking it will suck signal down as well as the Birdview. Maybe even better.

I have to clean it up, paint it, and make a support arm, but that isn't a big deal.

Now for some decisions.

Do I replace the 7.5 footer on the side of the building with this? That is a 3.5 inch pipe it sits on. Or do I wait and put it up as a 5th Bud?

Do I paint it black, charcoal gray, or white?

Do I use it for the 4DTV which is currently connected to the 7.5 footer, or switch the Pansat to this one, and connect the 4DTV to the Birdview?

Final question!

Does anyone have a clue who made this dish and what model it is? There are no markings or identification on it that I can see.

Thanks,

Fred

 

[lumpkin666]

chewfan - it looks like a decent dish. Its got plenty of "fins", so it's got some good support that should have kept it's shape nicely. That piece of mesh shouldn't cause you too much troubles (especially for c-band. I've seen bigger chunks of mesh missing entirely from working dishes). The dish looks a lot like my unimesh 10' dish (except mine is black, and has a rubber center cover instead of metal)

 

[lumpkin666]

linuxman - I was just thinking "Boy, it's good that he's into satellite dishes and not drugs! With the focus/dedication/addition to this hobby that you've shown here, you'd be a 'string out' disaster if you applied that same fixation to drugs" *laf*

You have an awesome setup, and the near perfect situation with your flat roof. I'd be in serious trouble if I had that much space to mount satellite dishes out of the scorning view of my wife!