How can I ID a dish

[age]

I have the opportunity to buy 1.8 meter dish that was used in a investment company business I'm told, and taken down from the roof there, I researched it and its a prodelin i believe from the pdf install manual I found on the internet. I only saw it once for like 4 minutes and couldnt find any IDer on it as it was fully assembled but lieing on its side off the pole. It has a monster of a lnb feedhorn lnb on it like 9inches across and 16 inch long guessimating. finned to death looks like for heat dissipation. I assume its a send and receive dish with a lnb that size. and it being a brokage house business use thats my assumption. Seems all the dish are classed as Rx,TX, ku, C, x , L. How can you id one from the other? looks like is a prodelin but they all look the same.
dish is the thermoplastic resin fiberglass , 8 bolts hold reflector to back structure.

I believe its a prodelin 1184 because it has a elivation scale on it or it could be a 1182 or it could be strictly x band or ku band, has the heavy duty arm on it, will take 30 lb lnb or more
I want it for c band. What can I measure to find out if it will do C band as I dont have any identifier on the dish to tell me.
it measures 71 by 76 1/2 inches, will the depth f/d ratio tell me something if it will do C band. With a string what will tell me if its C band capable.
I already have a 4 footer that I cant do c band on so I dont want to be stuck with another dish hard to hide around the yard from the neighbours. hehehhehehehe
Its a steal for under 50 bucks. in excellent shape.
Can someone give me some advice on this, without trail and error.

 

[Anole]

Search the FTA forum for Prodelin 6' offset dish.
Linuxman and many others have them.

 

[age]

thats the baby but it says its a ku band according to the thread link , but there all using them for C band. the backend is similar but with a el/az scale and a 6 inch polar mount, and side arms for lnb support..
what I'm wondering is the mold for making them, all the same for all the dishes but sold as a c, ku., or are they formed different for the frequency for its use.
the one in the picture has that type of lnb on it with the fins from what I see, that the one I want to buy.

I imagine there a pretty penny to buy new but its the shipping thats the killer. I had to travael some distance to buy a new raven because the shipping was more then the price of the dish and that being a 4 footer. I got this aluminum 4 footer that I could point to the ground and get ku band but nothing for c band. I used every formula around to find the focal point and gave up and used the sun and still no luck at c band, Ku band no problem

getting back to this prodelin if its a ku band dish as it said in linuxman thread , there pulling cband on it because of its size , what makes a ku or cband dish???? because its a deeper dish or more of the prime focus curve for a offset dish or what? you look at the dish maker specs of the dish, what makes the rx and tx verses rx?

 

[Anole]

Ku - the reflecting layer in the dish doesn't have any very big holes...if any at all.
C - the reflecting layer may be a grid, a mesh, or have holes too big for efficiently reflecting Ku signals.

Tx - it is very accurate, and won't send signals to the adjacent satellites in orbit. (and certified as such! )
Rx - it's a dish. May have more run-out or surface inaccuracy (just guessing. I suspect they come from the same mold)

These are all offset 6' dishes, made for reception or two-way communication on Ku band.
That big finned canister looking like a paint can, houses the transmitter and receiver front end.
So, if your dish has the paint can, your dish is certified for transmitting.

Yes, you can -use- a 6' to receive C-band. It is about the smallest size I'd recommend.

I've seen pictures of that dish equipped with two or three different LNB mounts.
One like Linuxman's pictures, is a big steel assembly, with no side support arms.
The other, is a smaller lower rod, with two side support arms.
Since both have been shown with the paint-can transmitter, I'll suspect they represent different years of production.

See also this thread by Pendragon, where he put his on an H-H mount, and matched a late-model Ku LNB to the original horn, for some serious Ku signal suckin'!

Here's another thread, where Linuxman put several Ku and C-band LNBFs on his fixed dish.

Lots of ways to skin a horse. What did you have in mind?

 

[age]

tried c band on a 4 footer, thought I'd do a 6 footer for the heck of it, see what comes of it. Its a well built dish, price is right if its available tomorrow.

 

[Anole]

There's no doubt it's an A+ dish, for the intended use.
For C-band, it's not the be-all, end-all.
And the mount it's on, is fixed, not motorizable ... if that's going to matter.
$50 won't break the bank, and it'll always be a nice toy to do many experiments on.

However, if you're serious for C-band, then ya might do well to set your sights on an 8' or 10' mesh, perforated, or even solid dish WITH a Motorized Mount.
(see links in my signature for two 8.something foot dishes which are sufficient ... if not common)
Even guys with relatively modest 7½ foot mesh dishes seem very happy.
And those are quite common.

 

[age]

its a fixed mount , no motor, might have the odd nut missing havent checked it. In my area theres alot of mess aluminum steel dishes, also alot of scrappers who will mine your teeth for filling for a buck at the recycle yard, because this is no metal I guess it got by them. the guys sick of looking at it in his driveway or the wife is.
It always happen, you buy a new dish and 2 weeks later theres a used one for sale or free somewhere. I could have had numerous mesh dishes but , I just thought this solid one was a find. a buddy of mine has about 10 dishes in parts at his farm, there all broken down and stored and not ones for sale to anyone , hes a collector of things he never will use. 6 to 10 footers with and without motors. its the fun of the hunt to find them I guess.
He was in his BUD dish collecting phase for awhile. hehehehehehe Not one is up and running other then a couple 32 inch ovals.

 

[age]

well I got the dish and its a 0179-189 prodelin 1.8, its a beautiful dish, close to 200 lbs. I made a pole up 8 feet long , I used a 4.5 pole, then I went out and sighted by compass where I thought I was going to stick it and I kept moving closer to where I cant stick it and in the end decided if I was only going to be able to get limited use and eyesore to others it wasnt going up, and no pole was going in the ground. Cant do a surface mount , no area to do it.
I got 60 bucks into it , so I dissembled it and I might sell it for cost , because I dont want to send it to the buddies satellite cemetary.
Its a real quality dish. AZ scale, EL scale even a built in leveling bubble.Or I might skin it down in structural weight for quicktemp install and under engineer it for temp assembly on sunny days and such to play with. Anyone out there got back bone shots of a lighter one they created for temp use?