Home made mini dish is it possible?

[Benzade]

Hi everyone,
Just more or less got into this hobby and it's very addictive! you start out with the bog standard Sly mini dish wanting to get the FTA channels and end up wanting a bigger and better dish always striving for the next elusive satellite!
However I'm digressing last night I was thinking "is it possible to make your own dish?" this was after a conversation with a friend who is into radio ham who jokingly suggested a wok to use of all things. Now I know the cost of a cheap mini dish out weighs time consumption etc so there's no need to point that out this is just a theory.
But can it be done? In my garden I have several gas bottles cut down and the bases used as ornamental plant pot holders the base of these gas bottles as some of you will know are curved and with some careful cutting using an angle grinder if i used the curved base and attached the correct length of arm and a digital LNB would it be possible once alligned to receive Astra 28.2?
Over to you guys. . .

 

[compufunk]

Have a look here.
http://www.satellites.co.uk/satelli...d-make-big-dish-home.html?highlight=home+made

 

[2cvbloke]

Well, if you already have the parabola (dish), then you just need to find it's focal point, not so easy with an offset dish, but achievable using the sun or a bright light and a piece of card (paper's too flimsy)...

And a Wok isn't a bad idea, as long as it's not the flat-bottomed type of course...

However, a gas bottle base may not be quite suitable for the job, as it'll be quite small once you get the correct parabolic shape, and there's also the fact that "round" dishes are actually taller than they are wide (this is so the LNB sees a round reflection, otherwise the signal would be distorted and won't focus correctly), so you'd need to work out how to make the bottle bottom taller than it is wide...

And another size issue is that it may not collect much signal, and if it does, it would have a rain-fade issue, but I suppose as a hobby-fashioned dish, that wouldn't matter too much...

You know, this has rekindled my enthusiasm to get my old BSB minidish working, assuming I can find it...

 

[Channel Hopper]

Yes, of course it is possible to make a small dish, but when they cost no more than a tenner, what's the point ?

Your local sky installer probably gets a few secondhand ones each week that he would gladly trade for some beer tokens.