Is That a Dish or a Picnic Table?- Early 80s Ad Scans 56k beware!!

[Techfizzle]

here are some ad scans from a few 81-85 mother earth news magazines. I would like to know what the first on is Ive never seen anything like it. It is from '81

 

[Pismire]

Growing up with Mother Earth news I remember these ads. Funny, kids should be reading other things but we really enjoyed reading these.

I saw one of these home brew dishes locally. It sat on a cement slab behind their house and was on casters so you could move to a different satellite. Ah the days of real fun dish projects.

Oh BTW it looked like the first one there.

 

[dfergie]

I remember reading about folks playing with LNB's against metal buildings or cars searching for signals...

 

[Pismire]

I had dreams of building the second one there after seeing HBO for free at a neighbors house. But lacking enough aluminum cans to pay for thr project it never got off the ground.

 

[starman345]

The first one, at the top of the page is a spherical antenna. I remember them in the magazines, don't think I ever actually saw one working. I just read about them in my book " build a personal earth station for worldwide satellite tv reception"(1982), it says you set the reflector and leave it alone. The feed- lna is located out front on a post independent of the reflector. It was possible to move the feed +-20 degrees right to left and get reception on several satellites. It goes on to say you could have multiple feeds-lnas but I remember the cost of those things at the time and I bet not many people had more than one.
There is a dish that looks identical to the dish on the second page about 100 miles from where I live. I've seen it a few times in my travels and always curse about forgetting my camera. Got to get those pictures some day and talk to whoever built it....if they are still around