Dish Arrays

[Simba27]

I had a thought the other day about what to do with the 2 old 60cm sky analogue dishes in my shed. I wondered if it was possible to point them both at the same satellite and combine the signal.

By my calculations, two 60cm dishes have approximately the same area as one 85cm dish. They would have to be very carefully positioned though because the wavelength at 12GHz is about 2cm, so if they were even 1cm out of phase, the signals would cancel each other out.

If the theory is sound then it could be extended. An array of 12 old sky dishes would cost about 60quid and have about the same area as a single 2 metre dish costing many times more. Although some sort of extra power supply would be needed because I don't think a standard receiver could power that many LNBs.

I am only theorizing here with no intention of trying this out, but what do you guys think? How difficult would it be to make this work.

Phil.
(Satellite Newbie)

 

[BGonaSTICK]

It's good to think.

If I were you though, I'd leave it in the 'great ideas I once had' bucket, and buy the 2M dish.

Alternatively, you could weld them all together in a kind of turtle-shell configuration and climb underneath in the event of the thermo-nuclear holocaust the leaflet that just came through my door is predicting for next Tuesday...

STICK

 

[Llew]

It's good to think.

If I were you though, I'd leave it in the 'great ideas I once had' bucket, and buy the 2M dish.

Alternatively, you could weld them all together in a kind of turtle-shell configuration and climb underneath in the event of the thermo-nuclear holocaust the leaflet that just came through my door is predicting for next Tuesday...

STICK

Why not build something like this?
http://www.mrao.cam.ac.uk/telescopes/ryle/index.html

Should be OK for Astra 2. (Just down the road from me - perhaps the array stuck in my mind when I was young)

Llew

 

[BGonaSTICK]

Hmmm, how long would the cable run be to your place? Even with the high losses, if you taped a nice lnb alongside the existing one, you might even get ITV3!

 

[Llew]

Couple of miles up the M11 - don't know what positoner(s) they use though...
The structure runs on the old Cambridge - Bedford railway line, which some people are trying to reopen. No chance, as the University rules all round here.

 

[Channel Hopper]

The structure runs on the old Cambridge - Bedford railway line, which some people are trying to reopen. No chance, as the University rules all round here.

I would have said the great lumps of steel and aluminium may pose an additionaltrouble factor in reopening the line

How about these for an array ?