Squariel

billw

I have got one of these museum pieces in my garage.With the advent of smaller
dishes for digital and internet via satellite is there any way this dish could be
utilised?Any suggestions(not rude ones please) would be appreciated.
Regards
Bill

2old4this

Square flat "dishes" are very much high-tech and in vogue actually. They are manufactured and sold for normal satellite reception. See here for example: http://www.satalogue.com/section4/page0.htm

I'm not sure though what kind of (built-in) LNB and polarisor your particular squarial has. That may be a restricting factor. Is it a BSB squarial? The original BSB DMAC broadcasts were right-hand circularly polarised, so the squarials' LNBs presumably incorporated a dielectric depolarisor. See http://www.staddiscombe.freeserve.co.uk/bsb.html
I guess to convert it to work as a normal univeral LNB you'd need to remove that and "twist" the dish by 45 degrees so the H/V probes are aligned with the incoming non-depolarised H/V signals.

The real limiting factor will inevitably be the extremely small size of the dish. And although voltage-switching is used for H/V selection (a la universal LNB) it probably isn't capable of receiving over the extended frequency range (switching hi/lo using the 22khz signals)

But I'm guessing and expect to be corrected...

2old

billw

Dear 2old4this
Further information regarding the squarial.It is 400mm.x400mm.and was made
for B.S.B by Matsushitsu.I believe it was quite a highly specified piece of equipment
for the time and was rumoured to have been supplied at a loss by B.S.B.
Can you suggest any use for this dish in todays digital world?

Regards,

Bill. .

billw

Dear 2old4this.
Woud you please confirm that the Squarial can be returned to my garage
until the next big breakthrough in satellite communications.
Thanks for your help.

Regards.

Bill.

2old4this

I'd already told you everything I know. As I posted, you might be able to use it if you remove the dialectric and realign it, but my guess is you're thinking more along the lines of: can it be used unmodified? In that case the answer was no, since - again as I had already posted - the dish is too small, the LNB as configured is for circularly polarised signals (the only beams carrying them in Europe are too weak to be picked up by a dish as small as that), and it will probably not give access to the extended range of frequencies used in digital broadcasting these days.
If anyone else out there knows more, please chip in.

2old