Giant 'old-time' satellite dish:How can I find out if it works? (cable, television)

[joeman]

A friend is buying property (bank-owned) in a rural area that has one of those HUGE white satellite dishes mounted in the yard. There are some wires and stuff coming off it, but not attatched to the house that I can see. How can we find out if it works? Does anyone know anything about these old satellite dishes?

[Cornerguy1]

Sounds like an old C-Band setup.

I'm not sure why you'd even want to get it working; go with a smaller digital dish from an outfit like DISH Network.

Let's shunt this over to the Tech forum and see if we can get you some answers.

[juggler]

As Cornerguy1 said, it appears to be a C-band dish. Google this on the web and you can find lots of info.

You might be able to check whether the dish mover (a motor that pans the dish across the sky to track satellites) is working by connecting the appropriate voltage to the motor terminals. To test the LNB (low noise block, the device that actually picks up the signals) you'll likely need a C-band receiver. Those can run several hundred dollars.

[Arcane]

Big Ugly Dish!

We had one of these back in the 80's. It was a whole new experience when it came to watching tv. There were hundreds of unknown (to me at the time) cable and local channels to watch. Watching raw feeds of different broadcasts made for interesting tv. Memories...But once a lot of stations started encoding their transmissions I guess we forgot about it and got cable or something.

I think it'd be a cool project to restore. You can still get a lot of different channels from around the world (Free to Air) with the right mods.

[South Range Family]

Since you said big and white, I'm going to assume that it's a solid dish. Solid is good because it means that you can pick up Ku band signals. If it was mesh, you would have to have the tighter weave for Ku.

Most of the satellites are Ku. There are a few C band, but not worth watching. I wonder if there are still C band wild feeds up there. Those were always cool to watch. If the dish moves, you have the advantage of hitting all of the satellites in the arc.

Anyhow, I would check to see if the dish will still physically move. Lube everything up, and clean the rust off of the bearings. If it does, there are receivers and LNB's that you can buy for an old C band dish. Do a Google search on FTA (free to air) satellites. You will learn all kinds of new terms such as Dave, Charlie, Bev, testing, bins, keys, non-plastic, full emulation, and most importantly Nagra3.

Nagra 3 is bad. Read up on it. I would also recommend Viewsat as a brand of receiver.

This link might help you out. http://forums.dsstester.com/vbb/index.php

[DanBev]

Originally Posted by Arcane

Big Ugly Dish!

We had one of these back in the 80's. It was a whole new experience when it came to watching tv. There were hundreds of unknown (to me at the time) cable and local channels to watch. Watching raw feeds of different broadcasts made for interesting tv. Memories...But once a lot of stations started encoding their transmissions I guess we forgot about it and got cable or something.

I think it'd be a cool project to restore. You can still get a lot of different channels from around the world (Free to Air) with the right mods.

All c-band anolog will be dead as of 2/17/09 when digital cuts over.You would have to purchase a digital reciever and LNB,expensive,along with actuator arm if it does not work.

[Arcane]

Even the FTA's in other countries are going digital? I'm a little out of the loop on this I guess.

[Brian.Pearson]

Originally Posted by DanBev

All c-band anolog will be dead as of 2/17/09 when digital cuts over.You would have to purchase a digital reciever and LNB,expensive,along with actuator arm if it does not work.

How about a digital-analog converter?

[South Range Family]

Originally Posted by DanBev

All c-band anolog will be dead as of 2/17/09 when digital cuts over.You would have to purchase a digital reciever and LNB,expensive,along with actuator arm if it does not work.

I don't believe that to be true. Television stations will cut over to digital, but that has nothing to do with microwaves coming from satellites.

I did some research to see if I was missing something. This is what I found.

C-Band Analog Discontinuance? - rec.video.satellite.tvro | Google Groups

c-band analog channels - Al7bar .tk FTA Satellite Television Community, Audio/Video and more!


The big question here is, do you think your buddy will be interested in a new hobby? Because playing with satellites is just that, a hobby. If not, he may as well tear it down for the scrap man.

[motormaker]

Yep, the cost to update is painful and many of the sats you have to pay for. Cut mine up and recycled the aluminum and went with the small dish, much happier.