Neighborhood BUDs

[Crocodile Locke]

Anole asked me to post some pics of the BUDs down at my cousin's house after he finished busting on me for having BUDs in my family when everyone else is searching the countryside banging on doors trying to find them.

Anyhow, here they are. Pics 1-4 are the 10ft fiberglass dish and 5-11 are the stainless steel(?) one. Both of them are very heavilly mounted on what looks like large diameter (over 6 inches) well casing. As you can see from the 30 ft trees in pic 5 the stainless one has been there awhile (1985 to be exact). I found out the stainless one isn't on their property, but I think I know who owns the land and I was toying with trying to acquire it for my own use.

 

[Anole]

votes are in:

Some of us were talking.
Not sure we want to recommend the fiberglass dish.
Some older ones tend to have a big of a 'sag' problem (they get out of shape).
Of course, if one of our experts gives you a thumb's up for it, that'd be great!

The metal dish got our attention.
We'd like better pictures, and some close-ups of the rim.
Stainless would be quite unusual, but again, that's subject to some of the dish experts on the forum.
We were wondering if it might be aluminum? It'd sure be a lot lighter.
Then, we couldn't decide if it was spun or stamped - that rim suggests stamping.

Looks like both dishes were mounted onto pipe way beyond what's needed.
You'd want to find the actual pipe size that fits the mount, and put that up at your location.
I don't see any point in fighting the drill casing! -

 

[whatchel1]

Of the 2

Of the 2 you are show don't get the fiberglass. Those were made in C-band only days and don't rally have that good of a mesh inside of it. I would also tend to bet that may not even pass a string test. If you look close at the Kaul the pipe is necked down most likely it is a 3 inch (3 1/2 OD). It a spun alum and the better of the two.

 

[Tron]

The one in the last picture seems to be cursed with a particularly unenviable LOS... Perhaps the trees grew up around it since it was installed many years ago?

 

[pedrogarcia]

Really interesting 2nd dish. it certainly looks aluminium but from pic 6 it looks to me it is roll formed in 4 pieces joined and has a seperately crimped edge. Sounds a manufacturing nightmare but in 1985 were spun dishes that size made?

 

[phlatwound]

Gotta agree with the gang here, that fiberglass dish is a no-go, definitely get the metal dish if those are your choices. Do you know the diameter of that (metal) dish? That Luxor looks like a keeper to me.

Tron, I think you may be right about those trees growing up, but you've got to respect a guy that can find a dish out in the middle of (what appears to be) trackless jungle!

pedrogarcia, I may have misunderstood your question (about the spun dishes) but I believe the spun Birdview dishes were made in the early 80's, maybe even late 70's?

BV had 9 1/2 or 10' dishes listed in one of their sales brochures, don't know if anyone here has ever seen anything bigger than the 8'-6 model though.

 

[ACRadio]

Luxor didn't make the dish...it was made by a different manufacturer. Luxor was a receiver manufacturer in Sweden, and in their day they made the Cadillac of receivers. Kaultronics did make spun stainless steel dishes at that time (Nova SS series), but looking at the lip it looks to be stamped instead of spun to me.

 

[pedrogarcia]

pedrogarcia, I may have misunderstood your question (about the spun dishes) but I believe the spun Birdview dishes were made in the early 80's, maybe even late 70's?

Phlatwood, thanks I could not think when spun ali Buds were first made. The lines on pic 6 made me think it was a 4 piece one

Crocodile Locke Is there any chance of some close up pix on the metal dish especially if there are seams in the dish and the edges please.

I have seen some stainless dishes recently used for heat exchangers produced by Cobham and some stainless mesh buds but never solid stainless. Can't imagine what the cost would be. It sure looks a keeper.

 

[Crocodile Locke]

I haven't had the time to get down to my cousin's house for more pics yet, but I plan on doing so. I also plan on bringing a magnet when I do.
When I took the pictures I flicked the dish with my finger and somehow the sound, along with the appearance, made me think stainless and for some reason I still just have a gut feeling that that's what it is. As far as "stamped or spun" I would say that the matching seams on the front and back indicate that it was stamped.

A little more history on the dish: The word from relatives is that my uncle put the dish in. There are a series of large treated poles spanning approx. 200 ft from the dish over to a house my uncle lived in. The poles alone would have been quite an investment and a significant time expenditure - this indicates to me that he wasn't fooling around when he put it in and was ready to lay down the cash for premium equipment. That's another reason why I didn't disregard my gut when it told me "stainless", but my next thought was "Crap that would be expensive!".

 

[Diamond Jim]

I've had a spun aluminium dish for 26 years and have never had a problem. I've seen a couple of fiber glass dishes in our new neighborhood and they look like they are kinda out of shape as far as being circular. Yes, metal are the best.:up

 

[pedrogarcia]

I reckon your gut for stainless is probably right. The fact there are seams maked me think it was machine rolled and not stamped out. Look forward to the pixs when you get time.

 

[Crocodile Locke]

I went down with a magnet and a camera and here's what I found: Pics 1 and 2 show my magnet sticks to it, therefore it is ferrous. If that wasn't enough, on closer inspection I noticed the faint logo stamped on the back in pic 3. Kudos to ACRadio for guessing it could be a NOVA SS. :up:up

Pics 4 and 5 are my sad attempts to take pictures of the rim. I was having problems trying to get my camera to focus. I guess I need to read my camera manual intead of relying on the AUTO setting. If you can't see in the pics, the seams on the dish continue through the rim and the rim has a slight amount of rust on the very edge around the entire circumference.

Finally, I learned that another cousin (lots of cousins) of mine owns the land it's on (he told me) and the dish was not put in by my uncle, but by yet another cousin of mine (no, we are not inbred). Cousin #1 who owns the land doesn't care if I take the dish and Cousin #2 hasn't even lived in the house the dish was connected to for many years, but I'll ask him since it's still his dish. I'd say there is about a 99% chance he won't give a crap either and then I'll go get it when I have time.:up :up I've got a can of Eagle One NEVR-DULL wadding polish waiting for it...ok maybe not.

 

[pedrogarcia]

Well done ACRadio.
This dish certainly has some heavy engineering and cost. It looks like the rim is seperately welded and clearly a slightly lower spec stainless (less Chrome content) hence the surface rust. That should polish out easily.

Great find Croc hope you manage to get it. The weight of it is going to take some manpower.
Good luck

 

[MyDishTV]

Kaultronics Stainless Steel Nova

The Kaultronics stainless steel dishes were hydro-formed in a huge press. Kaul made 9.5' and a 7' or 7.5 stainless steel dishes.

The wholesale price in 1984 was around $1200, about the same as a 12' Paraclipse or Janiel Dark Star.

The 9.5 Kaultronics was the first dish I sold in 1984, along with an Amplica remote-controlled receiver, an MTI programmable actuator (no remote, but a science-fictiony keypad that may have come from a Klingon warship), an 18' Saginaw ball screw jack and a 120-degree Amplica LNA w/ 70 mhz downconverter.

$4,300 with tax, installed.

Heavy. Did someone say heavy? Around 300 pounds, if memory serves. I think it mounted on a 4' or 4 1/2" OD pipe. It was too much for a 3 1/2" pipe. In a 40 mph breeze, a 10' mesh would pick up about a ton of wind load, so the 9.5' Kaultronics came pretty close to that, with about 6 times the weight.

Regarding 70 mhz downconverters --

My own first dish was a 12-foot Paraclipse aircraft-grade aluminum rib-ring-truss with aluminum mesh

The Kaultronics with a 120' LNA would pull in about 85% of the 150 available channels completely sparkle-free, with far better resolution than either DirecTV or Dish Network SD digital ever dreamed of providing. The channels it didn't get 100% were mostly backhaul channels that 16' and larger antennas were picking up for broadcast stations, with sufficient signal to keep sparkles barely noticeable.

The Paraclipse 12' with a 120' LNA pulled in about 90% of all available channels sparkle-free. Either dish gained about 5% of the channels sparkle-free with a 100-degree LNA.

When I saw the video that Dish and Direct digital provided, I swore I would never sell it. I changed my mind as a matter of survival.

I'd love to have a 9.5' Kaultronics. By the time you finished setting one of those up in the summer sun, you had no use for tanning parlors, for sure.

 

[toucan-man]

...I'd love to have a 9.5' Kaultronics. By the time you finished setting one of those up in the summer sun, you had no use for tanning parlors, for sure.

Haha. There are a number of KTI stainless dishes to be found around here. Wonder what they weigh?

 

[Anole]

thanks:

Thanks for the history lesson. And, welcome aboard the forum!

You'll find members with those old 12' Paraclipse dishes, some on the H-H mounts!
They're still running hot 'n heavy, using the latest LNB/feedhorn technology.

There are also guys with hydro-formed 8 or 9 foot Paraclipse dishes, and quite a number of spun aluminum 8½' Birdviews! - :up

It's always fun to go get a 25 year old dish for free, and then learn the original price was in the thousands!
Especially the ones that still work as well as the day they were made!

The Kaultronics stainless steel dishes were hydro-formed in a huge press. Kaul made 9.5' and a 7' or 7.5 stainless steel dishes.

The 9.5 Kaultronics was the first dish I sold in 1984, . . .
I'd love to have a 9.5' Kaultronics.

My own first dish was a 12-foot Paraclipse aircraft-grade aluminum rib-ring-truss with aluminum mesh ...