SATELITTE DISH FOR UHF ANTENNA

[Bulbman2]

Is there any way to take advvantage of an old dish satellite dish mounted on my roof?

I would like to put a uhf antenna up and us the exiting dish mount. Is there any adaptation that I can do to use the dish- ie take the lnb off and mount an antenna in its place.

I dont like getting up on the roof and there are 3 wires running from the dish and I can reach it with a ladder?

John

 

[stogie5150]

I have been told that you would need at least an 8 foot, (soild, preferably) dish pointed directly at the station you want to receive for the dish idea to work. So if you have a directv or Dish Network kind of dish, no.

Now, can you use the satellite cable for an antenna cable? Absolutely, as long as the cables from the dish go to the TV that you want the antenna on.

Depending on your distance from the towers you want to receive, you might MAKE yourself a little antenna to go on the dish mast. All it takes is a little time and some wire, do a search for homemade antenna, or DIY antenna, here or on the web with your favorite search engine. There is a wealth of info out there.

I currently have a 4-bay bowtie made from aluminum welding rods and plastic conduit that I intend on attaching to an old directv dish mast, myself. I am just going to remove the dish from the mount, and use a EMT conduit hanger to clamp it to the pipe that is left.

I hope some of that helped.

 

[truckracer]

Some companies used to make a parabolic (dish looking) screen mesh uhf antenna that was about 6 feet in diameter. It had two small UHF elements at the focal point. I would imagine it to be very high gain (very directional) and good for long distances.

Your dish certainly could be a great uhf antenna but your elevation will have to be set to near zero. The whole dish will have to be rotated on the pole (polar axis) toward the stations' antenna towers.

You will also have to make a feed antenna element or remove them from a uhf antenna
at the focal point.

 

[Jim5506]

And, DBS dishes are offset, so all the geometry is out of whack.

 

[dtvdude]

using dish

call this number 3052457509 buy a conversion kit for your dish, it' s 4 any 18" to 20 dish,. they're called DTV Green Dish. they began selling the kits and installing them in miami fl. got mine and I am pleased. I'm getting 32 dtv channels at between 65% to 87% signal meter on each channels. fox and abc are still in vhf so those two are at 65% the rest are in uhf and they are at 77% to 87%. it comes with a 90 day warranty. if you have an old dish you get a credit, if you don't have one they provide it with mast for 75 bucks. the kit is 150.00 and it rocks. hope this helps

 

[Jim5506]

Save your money, or buy stock in Lehman Brothers.

 

[boba]

Dtvdude is still a one man sales force. I wonder if it is his huckster company?

 

[dtvdude]

green dish

no but I wish Ida come up with that idea, Id be rich my man. No, I have one and I'm just lettin others know it works real good. Why would they offer a money back gaurantee without RMAs. There's a lot of good folks outthere who ask if a dish can be used and believe it they are doing it here in miami! I'm no sucker, I saw it work, I got one and now instead of paying for basic cable, I can use the money for something else. now the fool who said invest in stocks has his head up his a.. because stocks are the rip off. But that's a different forum. I ain't sellin for no one and I do'nt have no stake in it I just luv my dtv
man and Idon't pay no more. Good day

 

[kb7oeb]

If you live near strong signals that is not enough just to see it work, I can pick up several stations with a paper clip.

 

[elder]

I am thinking of trying to use my Dish antenna for UHF Ch 53. I am thinking of a folded dipole feed which would be about 7.92 inches according to one calculator and a Dollar Tree balun. It certainly won't be optimized but neither are some of the antennas sold for DTV. It's easy enough to try, but I am going to wait until the dust settles after the transition before I do any experimentation. Right now I have an Antennas Direct 91XG which I manually rotate as my stations are a bit more than 90 degrees apart.

 

[Jim5506]

You also need to have the dipole 1 wavelength or a multiple of 1 wavelength from the reflector or the reflected signal will cancel out the incoming signal.

This is why reflectors can be a problem for antennas capturing a broad range of frequencies.