BSB dishes / squarials that are still in place

[streetlighter]

spotted this in sandbach had to have a pic!

 

[proterra]

Found another two over the weekend. The first one is on the back wall of Comet in Partick, Glasgow. The second is at the Bar West pub in Hamilton. There's more of these kicking around than you'd think!

At the back of the Comet store, on the opposite wall from this, there is also an old satellite dish with the "Comet" logo still visible, very faded but visible. Probably been there since Sky was on Astra 1.

 

[Studio Muppet]

It makes me wonder how long they broadcast the attached message after pulling the plug on the operation. Anyone remember?

I see lots of new BSB clips have been added here: _http://www2.tv-ark.org.uk/skytv/bsb.html

 

[2cvbloke]

Another one to add to the pot, this one is in Bolton, I forgot what the street name is, but I spotted it while walking to somewhere to collect something I'd bought on ebay:

 

[Barry Young]

My Goodness this is worse than train spotting. I hope you all have anoraks

 

[2cvbloke]

My Goodness this is worse than train spotting. I hope you all have anoraks

Nah, trainspotters can tell you what model, class of train, where they were built and what services they have been on simply by looking at the numbers on each end, BSB squarials and dishes vary, but I'll be damned if I know much about them...

 

[DishDick]

What you can´t see in most of the pictures, is the train spotter in the distance shouting "get a life!".

Anyway Barry, what its all about is quite a few people liked BSB and the squarial didn´t half look nice. Much nicer than an ugly dish. I had more pride in my Philips BSB system than I do in my dish farm with 3m , 1.2m, 1m and 80cm dishes!

 

[Barry Young]

You know what, I have a good mind to look for one on the Costa Blanca. Somehow I don't think I'll be successfully.

I'll get my anorak out of the wardrobe.:-righton

 

[Captain Jack]

Can these dishes still be used to receive anything? I remember being able to receive analogue stuff on it but had to turn the "dish" 90 degrees to get a different polarity....

 

[Jaffboy151]

Barry you be better off listing the many different types of superbeam dishes in use out there & the old mesh telemicro ones.. Was in Quesada last week and was much to hot for my anorak, but it didnt stop me winding the mrs up about getting one of those huge 2-3m dishes you all have out there!

 

[timo_w2s]

Can these dishes still be used to receive anything? I remember being able to receive analogue stuff on it but had to turn the "dish" 90 degrees to get a different polarity....

Are you sure, the LNBs where circularly polarised so skew shouldn't make a difference? I "converted" one of the old BSB dishes to the opposite polarity by stuffing a bit of blutack down the feedhorn to pick up the Swedish PAL FTA channels from Sirius 1 (ex-Marcopolo 1) in Finland in the 90s.

Most circularly polarised stuff now comes from Russia, everyone else in Europe uses H/V for KU band stuff.

 

[Captain Jack]

Uhm.... I am fairly certain, but you saying it's single polarity (R or L) makes me wonder now.

 

[timo_w2s]

Uhm.... I am fairly certain, but you saying it's single polarity (R or L) makes me wonder now.

Not sure if the same applies to Squarials?

 

[fergyc]

Not sure if the same applies to Squarials?

Yeah, saw it posted somewhere. For some reason I think it may have been nano a few years ago

 

[Analoguesat]

Can these dishes still be used to receive anything? I remember being able to receive analogue stuff on it but had to turn the "dish" 90 degrees to get a different polarity....

I managed to get weak signals off the 5W channels using a BSB dish a few years ago, but the circular polarity lnb really hurt the H/V signal

 

[timo_w2s]

This thread inspired me to dig out my old 35cm Channel Master BSB dish from the loft and give it a good dusting. I'm planning on making a homemade LNB mount so I can put a decent LNB on it and see if I can use it to pick up one of the stronger satellites as the dish itself is pretty solid and decent.

 

[2cvbloke]

This thread inspired me to dig out my old 35cm Channel Master BSB dish from the loft and give it a good dusting. I'm planning on making a homemade LNB mount so I can put a decent LNB on it and see if I can use it to pick up one of the stronger satellites as the dish itself is pretty solid and decent.

I started on making a bracket for my 35CM dish a few years ago, only need to drill holes in it and it'll be in use, I'm just lazy...

Still, I did manage to use it to pick up Cuatro on 30W before it disappeared, all I did was take a boxy LNB (a Lidl special) and zip-tie it onto the arm of the dish, and it worked perfectly, and indoors too...

http://www.satellites.co.uk/forums/analogue-systems/57833-bsb-minidish.html#post498366

I really should finish off that bracket...

 

[Captain Jack]

I was actually talking about the Squarial - not sure about the other more conventional one. Wasn't a square dish their selling point? What was the point of selling standard dishes?

 

[timo_w2s]

I started on making a bracket for my 35CM dish a few years ago, only need to drill holes in it and it'll be in use, I'm just lazy...

Still, I did manage to use it to pick up Cuatro on 30W before it disappeared, all I did was take a boxy LNB (a Lidl special) and zip-tie it onto the arm of the dish, and it worked perfectly, and indoors too...

http://www.satellites.co.uk/forums/analogue-systems/57833-bsb-minidish.html#post498366

I really should finish off that bracket...

I know the feeling, I've got hundreds of projects waiting to be done or half finished... I see your dish is a 35cm-1 whereas mine is a 35cm-2. I wonder what the difference is? From the pictures they look the same except mine is a bit more weathered and scratched as it's been dragged between the UK and Finland a few times over the years. I was thinking of using it for either 1W or 5E in Finland as my balcony is rather limited on space and the 80cm dish on there it taking up most of the space already. (Even a Sky zone 1 mini-dish is a little too big)

I was actually talking about the Squarial - not sure about the other more conventional one. Wasn't a square dish their selling point? What was the point of selling standard dishes?

Choice? I think they where cheaper too. I had a Squarial too but that wasn't so easy to modify so it wasn't used much other than as a memento (both where bought for £5 each new from a What Satellite advert after BSB announced it was merging).

 

[2cvbloke]

I was actually talking about the Squarial - not sure about the other more conventional one. Wasn't a square dish their selling point? What was the point of selling standard dishes?

The reason for the dishes is purely cost, the squarials (or Flat Plate Antennas as they're actually called) were very expensive to produce, so, they reduced costs by using dishes, which are pretty small and unobtrusive, as were the squarials, but it is of course the squarial which is what made BSB more memorable...


As for altering a squarial to pick up modern day transmissions, I found it hard to try and achieve that, even using modern technology added in place of the original, it's designed for Circular polarisation, and that's not easy to come by these days, and unless you find a high powered transmission, the H&V transmissions are difficult to tune into, I tried just that with my BSB squarial (isung my long gone Attisat FPA's mount which was aligned on Hispasat, to aid finding said satellite), and while I did get a signal, and had adjusted the settings of the receiver, all I got was an unstable, static-laden image which I could barely make out as Cuatro...


http://www.satellites.co.uk/forums/retro-tech/60728-ive-got-squarial.html


I think the polarity changing mod was through opening up the squarial and flipping the plastic sheets over, which reversed the polarity, so you could pick up Left hand instead of Right hand, and vice-versa...