Scientific Atlanta 16 foot dish

[linuxman]

Well I don't know if you guys remember my posting about this dish in one of my dish hunting threads, but lo and behold, my hunting may have paid off.

The maintenance manager at the motel where this dish resides called me this afternoon, and said that he will call me back by this Wednesday about it becoming my property.

I left my card there over a year ago, and he kept it.

I am feeling much better, but will need a bunch of help to retrieve this momma! Then I don't know where I am going to put it once I have it. :yikes:

I might just get it and bring it up here for safe-keeping until I or someone on this forum might want it.

Here are the pics I posted last year:



EDIT: Found another pic:



I am going to have to think about it long and hard before coming out of dish hunting retirement for this dish.

The only thing I can think of that might make it worthwhile is if it might be possible to use it stationary to get multiple C and Ku satellites off this one dish.

How many satellites do you think is possible to get off this one dish?

 

[Lak7]

But how do you make it move?!

 

[nelson61]

Wow, what a find. Can't tell by the pics, but does it break down in sections?

 

[cracklincrotch]

I'd guess several, and without any interference from other nearby sats too.

 

[No Doubt]

A LPFM or NON COMM radio station might be interested, Guy.

 

[linuxman]

But how do you make it move?!

I don't know, but it is motorized. I'll need to have a sit down with the maintenance guy and make sure all the electronics comes with it before I go to all the trouble to get this puppy.

Who knows what kind of receiver/receivers might come along for the ride.

Wow, what a find. Can't tell by the pics, but does it break down in sections?

It does break down in sections, so it won't be too bad.

 

[linuxman]

I'd guess several, and without any interference from other nearby sats too.

I hope Mike Kohl jumps in on the discussion. He has had lots of experience with multi-lnbs on this kind of dish. The number of satellites might not be as many as one might think. There are lots of variables.

Maybe Caddata would have a thought or two as well.

A LPFM or NON COMM radio station might be interested.

Hadn't thought about that. Hmmm!

 

[Cadsulfide]

Great Find!

 

[turbosat]

Wow

Linuxman scored a big one there. Looks like a lot of work , but wouldn't a huge dish be fun to own?
Good luck on that project linuxman & HAppy New Year !

 

[tvropro]

Back in the day my local cable company used one of those. They used to look at G1 and F3R on it. Nice dish to use for the Intelsat Atlantic birds. It would be way overkill for the domestic arc where your at Fred.

 

[rv1pop]

I got room for it if you don't !!! Good find.

 

[nelson61]

Used, it's worth a couple thousand without a problem. 16 foot solid prime focus sells in Guadaljara for around four thousand. Used, you could ship to Mexico for KU reception and someone would still save a thousand or so.

 

[Anole]

In my archives, I have some pictures of an identical 16' dish.
It's just on a less impressive mount.
But neither are motorized, and the applications for a fixed BUD for an end user are limited.
Yes, Mexico or Central America FTA, Dish Network, or DirecTV might be a possibility, but transportation to there or to Alaska would be a killer.

As a possible candidate for multi-LNB fixed service, it's got a lot going for it.
First, you need to know the focal length to see how many inches apart the LNBs need to be for 2° spacing (or whatever you need).
Then, will your roof hold such a dish... and not shadow the others? -

If you get it for free and can find someone to pay a couple of kilobucks, it's attractive.
But, short of that, I'm not convinced.
Good luck. Just don't kill yourself over it. -

 

[mbarnes]

The gearing in the drive for that thing must be interesting. The way it is mounted, think about a five gallon bucket of water hung on the end of a 15 foot pole you are holding the other end with one hand and your arm outstretched. It doesn't look like it will go full H-H, but it should cover a good arc of some popular birds. I hate to imagine how much concrete is in the base for that thing.

rv1pop, I hope you post some pictures when you get that beastie mounted on your motor home.

 

[rv1pop]

I would not mount it on the motor home, but I can get a trailer that could carry it with the dish in two pieces. A 16 foot, 5 ton hay trailer, with side boards and stock railings.

 

[mikekohl]

S-A antennas of this vintage in a motorized configuration are another whole new world---a company that I worked for in Santa Barbara, CA back in the late 80s installed a bunch of these, and did some prototype work on motorization.
Lots of issues with counterweights, gear reduction, and very heavy duty motors and special controllers with unique cabling that would not fit well into the scheme of a DIY installation. But they worked beautifully on weak signals. If you can get one of these, I would suggest a multifeed C-band installation. F/D ratio on these is really not advantageous for Ku-band (you could do more modifying a 2.4 meter offset), but five C-band feeds at 2 degree spacing is doable in a fixed installation.
Commercial bracketing kits are available, or you can venture into the world of fabrication. Unless you are feeding a headend of multiple receivers, this is really a dinosaur....but perhaps something of this size might be useful for extending the geographic range of a weak satellite signal such as ARCS on 139 West, into the western Mountain time zone. Otherwise export it somewhere such as Mexico, Central or South America for fringe U.S. domsat reception.

Happy New Year.

 

[linuxman]

Thanks Mike, Anole, Tvropro, Pop, Turbosat and others for you thoughts and suggestions.

I like the idea of a fixed C-Band configuration, but just don't know whether it would be worth it for me to come out of a bad illness so soon and in the middle of winter to try and get the thing. If I did get it, the only place for me to put it would be on the parking lot out front North of my 10 foot scanning dish.

There would be a good bit of expense sinking concrete piers for it to set on.

Having 5 fixed C-Band satellites is very attractive to me. One could have 87W, 89W, 91W, 93W, and 95W covered with almost flawless reception even on S2 signals. That's a lot of good programming without having to move the dish.

Makes me want to re-think my whole dish farm setup.

If you can do 5 - two degree satellites on this dish, how many satellites can one reasonably expect to get on any ordinary 7.5 foot - 10 foot dish as fixed multi-lnb C-Band setups?

Could one expect to get 2 or maybe 3 two degree satellites on one dish?

The reason I am asking is that I have 2 dishes for 4DTV usage and they need to stay as they are for that purpose.

I have 4 other operational C-Band/Ku dishes now and have room on the roof for an additional 4 more dishes and perhaps more. But to use them that way, I would need to have all the fixed dishes so that multiple receivers could utilize them independently.

How would you go about making that happen?

 

[linuxman]

Just thinking out loud here about how many C-Band dishes needed to cover most of the arc using fixed dishes and multiple C and/or C/Ku LNBFs.

1 - 72W AMC6 could be combined to get 74W H2 Ku as well.
2 - 87W AMC3, 89W G28, 91W G17 for C and Ku signals
3 - 95W G3, 97W G25, 99W G16 for C and Ku signals
4 - 101W AMC4, 103W AMC1, 105W for C and Ku signals
5 - 107.3W AnikF1 for C and what Ku is there
6 - 121W G23, 123W G18, 125W G14/AMC21 for C and Ku
7 - 127W G13, 129W G27, 131W AMC11 for C and Ku
8 - 133W G15, 135W AMC10, 137W AMC7, for C-Band

Assuming that you can get 3 satellites with 2 degrees of separation per Big Dish using 8 dishes one could get most of the arc with most of the English channels viewable from NA.

You could fill in Ku for other satellites not covered with smaller off-set dishes using multi-lnbs.

The big question remaining is how to get all these dishes/LNBFs distributed to more than one receiver and be able to watch different channels from each receiver.

To make this work, you would need big dishes with at least .38 or higher F/D ratios. The flatter the dish, the better for multi-lnbfs.

BTW, I am leaning against getting the monster dish for myself. I will go have the sit down with the maintenance guy and take new pictures along with an exact measurement of the diameter.

If anyone on the forum is interested in the dish, I will do what I can to make arrangements to claim it for whoever wants to come and get it.

 

[Cadsulfide]

Linuxman;

I think a lot of what determines how you set up your system is how many people are in your household, and how well they all get along. I built a baby cable system, with all the equipment in a central location, and modulated each reciever to a different channel. every TV in the house gets every channel. With multiple 8x1 switches to multiple recievers each on different channels, with remote extenders and learning remotes, you could get them all from any room(s) you choose.

With all the stuff you have, I think you could set up a 125 channel headend!

 

[linuxman]

Linuxman;

I think a lot of what determines how you set up your system is how many people are in your household, and how well they all get along. I built a baby cable system, with all the equipment in a central location, and modulated each reciever to a different channel. every TV in the house gets every channel. With multiple 8x1 switches to multiple recievers each on different channels, with remote extenders and learning remotes, you could get them all from any room(s) you choose.

With all the stuff you have, I think you could set up a 125 channel headend!

Thanks Cadsulfide!!!

I know there has to be a way to do what I eventually would like to do, and as you said, I have most of the equipment already here, it is just a matter of thinking it through. Sometimes my head gets in a fog, and I have trouble thinking clearly especially when looking at the project as a whole. I am much better at doing a piece at a time, but then the whole sometimes gets lost.

Here is what I currently have for FTA other than my two 4DTV units and their dedicated dishes:

In the family room I have a Pansat 3500 running a 10 foot Winegard Pinnacle and a Primestar 84e for 123/129 and a Primestar 84e for Hispasat. That system seldom gets used because simply because the satellites and channels are a little overwhelming for my wife and teen-agers.

I started off in there a couple of years ago trying to setup favorites for them to make life easier, but they had the dish moving across the arc like a windshield wiper and I feared for the life of the AJAK mount so I took the favorites out.

In the setup in "my" room, I have a Pansat 3500 running my Birdview solid all by itself, and it generally get used for This TV network and every Saturday night I run it over to G3 for Gaithers on Daystar so I can listen on the surround sound.

In that same cabinet, I have my Diamond 9000/Twinhan 1020a PC tuner card setup running my Perforated Birdview with Bullseye II setup. also attached to that setup is a Primestar 84e for 123/129, another Primestar 84e for 87/97, and a Primestar 1M for Hispasat.

I have another Primestar 84e, and a 75e in the warehouse not doing anything currently, and know where there are two more 84es just a short distance away that I can get. I can easily cover the whole Ku arc and utilize them for both rooms, and should be doing that now. :yikes:

The biggest hindrance right now would be lack of fixed C-Band dishes. I could start off slowly this spring and bring some more on line. I have a 10 foot Unimesh and 3 - 7.5 foot Perfect 10s in the warehouse now not doing anything. Just have to make or find some more non-penetrating mounts. If I needed more C-Band dishes, I have a log book with locations of about 20 more.

I still have lots of room on the roof, and could have more if I would re-arrange existing dishes a little. Heck, the neighbor on my East even cut down some trees at the South end of the building which clears the LOS on that end for sats down to about 6 degrees elevation if there is anything that far East worth watching.

I would then just need a "few" C-Band only voltage controlled LNBFs and a nice bracket for holding three 2 degree satellites per dish.

I really want to hear more about your setup and perhaps a drawing of how you did it with the 8X1 switches.

All of the above doesn't take into account what I have in my repair/showroom up front in the building, but I want to leave that setup as is for now just for scanning/testing purposes.

Thanks!!