After serving my local community for 21 years, my local utility company is getting out of the cable TV business. I know I couldn't afford it or have the space for it, but I'm guessing the giant Simulsat dish on their roof along with their digital and analog equipment will likely be sold or auctioned off after they cease TV service on December 31. I looked up the specs on Simulsat's page, and based on appearances, this appears to be the Simulsat 5B model. If so, that thing has got a ton of gain. Their datasheet estimated the gain was equivalent to a 14-foot C-band dish.
Cable Company Leaving TV Business (Nice Dish)
- Thread starter TNGuy84
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Really cool looking dish. Here is a thread where one was being given away free a few years back. 
www.satelliteguys.us
Free Simulsat Dish
I got the following from Mike Kohl and he wanted me to pass it on. Do you know anyone that would want a simulsat dish for free. They would only need to disassemble and truck away. Located in California. For more information please email Craig at cviar at executive-broadband.com Sent...
www.satelliteguys.us
Here is another thread that I posted a few years earlier with good info:
www.satelliteguys.us
Free Simulsat in Davis, California
Here are a couple of toys for the back yard. Worth driving for! Pity that my crane and semi are in the shop! LOL!!! FREE Huge Satellite Dishes (Located in Davis) Simulsat Technical Manuals
www.satelliteguys.us
It's a nice looking dish for sure. I doubt they'd give it away after all of the investment they've made in the cable TV business over the years. They just couldn't justify staying in business as a small county TV cable company when their pricing continued to jump. Before they announced their ending of the service, Their pricing tiers were pretty much $30 and $100. $30 for locals and a few cheap channels thrown in, and $100 for everything. That's a stark contrast to what they started charging in the beginning.Really cool looking dish. Here is a thread where one was being given away free a few years back.
Free Simulsat Dish
I got the following from Mike Kohl and he wanted me to pass it on. Do you know anyone that would want a simulsat dish for free. They would only need to disassemble and truck away. Located in California. For more information please email Craig at cviar at executive-broadband.com Sent...
Small local cable companies are great sources of used C-band dishes, often for free when they shut down or get bought out. Also TV and radio stations... many of their feeds are IP these days and they are willing to part with satellite hardware they're not using.
Back in 1990 I was part of a crew that disassembled a simulsat from a casino near Los Angeles, and then transported it and reassembled/reinstalled at the UCLA campus.
The amount of effort and materials to accomplish dissassembly, moving and reinstallation cannot be underestimated. It took two of us a day to simply take apart and use heavy equipment to get the dissassembled sections onto a trailer for transport. The dish then went into storage for a couple of months while about 15 yards of concrete was poured for a suitable installation pad. When it was ready to transport for installation, the first crane we rented failed (was not strong enough to lift the pieces of antenna). With new equipment, we were able to successfully get it to the now-ready installation site, and put into place. The fun continued as we re-attached the feed assembly structure and aligned each individual feed assembly. Not an easy job to get it right---one could safely say that these antennas were probably designed to be installed once, because there was a huge increase in the amount of time needed to properly complete the reinstall due to having to put things back together properly and make it work close to specifications. Nothing is easy! I am telling this story as a caution to anyone thinking that getting a free antenna like this is going to be a bargain. If you are getting it free of charge, then it might be worth it. Thousands of dollars will be required to properly reinstall when you consider the foundation, lifting equipment, and labor. If there are no takers, it is entirely possible that this might go to the scrapyard because of the reality of these economics. Negotiate carefully for that free antenna.
