Dish Brand ???

[Lone-Star]

Hi evryone,

I got this 10 ft fiberglass dish that somebody wanted to get rid of his back yard. Question is, Do somebody knows what brand it is? please note the STAR patern in the center of the dish when all 4 petals come tougther, Thanks.

 

[KE4EST]

Moved to FTA....will get you a better answer.

 

[boba]

From what litte is shown I'm guessing at a Prodelin "C" band dish. Do you have the feed support and mount?

 

[broeddog]

I agree with boba it looks like a Prodilen 10 ft dish, that was the go to dish back in days when I installed C band systems.

 

[Lone-Star]

Hi Boba,

No, I didn't get any hardware just the 4 petals, that is the reason I am looking for the brand name of this dish, As you can see in the picture there is a STAR shape in the center of the dish, that is the only thing I can say that may be of some help to identify this dish. It is very old but it looks in great condition. If I am able to get some information I could assemble it back and put it to work. Thanks for the info.

 

[Anole]

With no feed arms and no mount, you have a bit of an up hill battle.
I hoped you could give us pictures of 'em to help identify it.

Maybe you could add a bit more info:
- weight of a petal (so we know how heavy the dish is)
- how many & where the feed horn mounting struts are on the dish
- picture of the back side of a petal

 

[Lone-Star]

Hi Micheal, KE4EST

hope I am right, thanks for you anwser. Could you explain a bit what is FTA, I am new to this site. I just triying to get some information on this dish, as you may guess now I will use it for EME and satellite comm.

have a great day,

Raul, KE5MGA

 

[Lone-Star]

Hi Anole,

I just uploaded some more pics, so you can have a better idea of how this dish look like, wegiht is about 20 lbs each petal, I can move them arround by my self but they are bulky, It had just one feed mounting strut in the center according with previous owner, when we removed it from his back yard it just had a piece square metal 6" X 6" X 1/4 in the center of the dish, seems to have a square pipe welded to it.

Thanks for your help,

have a nice day.

 

[FaT Air]

It's not too hard to measure and calculate the focal point. Then fashion a quad legged support for the feed horn setup. Knowing exactly the brand is secondary. The tough part is the polar mount. But then for EME a polar mount is probably not necessary. Az-El would be easier to 'fashion' up.
They may be Prodelin, but they look very similar to dish sections, used up in these parts, under many different brand names. BITD.

Could you explain a bit what is FTA

FTA - It will get you news sources from around the world. Many channels of PBS. Many of the Sub-Channels carried by local television stations. That and the hunt for subscription channels that have to turn off their scrambling because of issues and unscheduled feeds of news and weather events. Other than the above, FTA is NOT to get you your premium cable channels.
Have Fun, and keep a dish aimed at the sky!

 

[Lone-Star]

Hi Anole,

I just uploaded some more pics, so you can have a better idea of how this dish look like, weight is about 20 lbs each petal, I can move them arround by my self but they are bulky, It had just one feed mounting strut in the center according with previous owner, when we removed it from his back yard it just had a piece square metal 6" X 6" X 1/4 in the center of the dish, seems to have a square pipe welded to it.

Thanks for your help,

have a nice day.

 

[Anole]

Dishes have either 3 or 4 legs holding the feed & LNB, or as in this case have a single central rod which is called a button hook.

These later pictures finally show the starburst/flower design molded at the center of the dish. Should help identify the brand or manufacturer.

Commercial dishes such as Prodelin or ChannelMaster/Andrew would have reenforcing ribs molded into the back side.

We recently had someone looking for a Paraclipse 12' dish for EME. Is 10' big enough?

There's lots more to say about restoring the dish to FTA C-band reception, but that hinges on its intended use.
I don't believe you can set it up for both EME & FTA.
(well, I wouldn't. I'd use a dish for each, and on different types of mounts)

 

[primestar31]

There's plenty of complete dishes out there for the taking. Why even bother with this one if you've never had a dish system before? It's plenty of work to restore and re-install a complete dish system that's already torn apart, so building stuff from scratch when you don't have the originals for patterns is not an effective way to go about it.

I highly suggest you pass on this shell, and look for a better choice.

 

[Lone-Star]

Well, I hope with the pics somebody may identify this dish, I think for EME or SatComm a 10' would work just fine as intended for primary use, of course the bigger the dish and the smaller wavelength the better the gain, secodary use could be FTA using a log periodic antenna for multiband purposes eliminating the need of multiple feedhorns, but all of this is still in the air.

Thank all of you for your help.