On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 11:39:12 +0100, Highland Ham
wrote:

Dave Typinski wrote:
Anyone have any ideas about what one might do with a television
receive-only (TVRO) antenna? The thing is 10' diameter and it's mine
for the price of dismantling it and hauling it out of the present
owner's back yard.

I'm thinking radio astronomy. Might be nice to make my own radio map
of the galaxy. I'm guessing that this would work okay somewhere
between 1 and 10 GHz... which means making a feed horn... which is
easy enough to do.

What else could I do with this antenna? Other than covering it in
polyethylene sheet to make a really big bird bath...
==================================
Possible usage:
1) EME amateur comms
2) WiFi low power experiments (provided there is line of sight freedom)
I remember having seen a web site with reports (incl photographs) that
some youngsters bridged a 125 km path using off the shelf equipment and
dishes having a size like yours.

Hopefully you don't have just the dish but also a mounting pedestal and
perhaps even a motorised system .

Frank GM0CSZ / KN6WH

Yep, got the pedestal and the azimuth drive motor.

125 km at 2.4 GHz? How's that work? What were they bouncing the
signal off of? That's definitely further than line of sight.
--
Dave Typinski
AJ4CO