What kind of dish is this?

[sparky01]

I have seen dishes like this on gas stations and I always wondered what they were for. They are not this big, but the same shape. What kind of dish is this?

 

[Mr Tony]

I think they are used for Credit card transactions....I know up by our cabin they have one too along with a big KU dish for in house music

 

[phlatwound]

I think most of the lotteries run on satellite feeds now, not sure what knd of dishes they use.

 

[rocket69]

most are viasat systems made and distribute through idirect for internet/intranetsystems for gas stasions so corporate can keep track of sales and also have axx to pumps so if the stasion cant pay its bill for gass in its tainks they shut them off no pay for 48hrs and a truck rolles out and pumps the tainks dry

 

[Tron]

The ones on gas stations are VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) dishes (see [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VSAT"]Very small aperture terminal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Question_book-new.svg" class="image"><img alt="Question book-new.svg" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/99/Question_book-new.svg/50px-Question_book-new.svg.png"@@AMEPARAM@@en/thumb/9/99/Question_book-new.svg/50px-Question_book-new.svg.png[/ame])... These dishes also make good FTA dishes, if you find a business that is being torn down or is replacing their dish

The rectangle shape is beginning to appear with more frequency on rooftops... They probably reject sidelobe interference more effectively.

 

[cracklincrotch]

Especially if they're the size of the one on the back of that trailer.

 

[Greg Mueller]

There used to be one over by Boeing Field in Seattle, but it was huge! I'm betting it was around 30' wide IIRCC. It had multiple LNBs on it and I guessed (at the time) that it was so you could get a large number of birds on one dish. It was permanently mounted though.

 

[rkrenicki]

The big one (that Greg mentioned) is a simulsat. Used to pick up the entire clarke belt, viewable in the US.

The smaller ones, are for credit card data, as mentioned previously. I believe they all use horizontal polarity, so they use the big wide dishes to increase the gain for that polarity.

The one in the picture, I believe is a semi-permanent Ku Uplink antenna.