How to use dish as an antenna

[pintree3]

How to use dish as an antenna:
Knowing nothing and I mean nothing about satellite dishes that question is the best I could do, sorry.
Here's the story. The dish was installed many years ago. and then was abandoned being replaced by cable TV. Now it is there sitting on the roof doing nothing.
My sister doesn't use cable or anything: not watching TV much all she does is use a small antenna sitting next to her TV. SO a question came to mind. Would it be possible to make my sister use my dish to act as an external antenna therefore giving her better reception and perhaps a few free channels along the way--she lives close to the city center-Montreal.
If the answer is yes then I would need to know how to do this or where I could attain information to do so. If it would require me to spend more than a few bucks then I would scrap the idea entirely.
If anyone could help regarding this I would be most appreciative.

 

[Archived-1]

How to use dish as an antenna:
Knowing nothing and I mean nothing about satellite dishes that question is the best I could do, sorry.
Here's the story. The dish was installed many years ago. and then was abandoned being replaced by cable TV. Now it is there sitting on the roof doing nothing.
My sister doesn't use cable or anything: not watching TV much all she does is use a small antenna sitting next to her TV. SO a question came to mind. Would it be possible to make my sister use my dish to act as an external antenna therefore giving her better reception and perhaps a few free channels along the way--she lives close to the city center-Montreal.
If the answer is yes then I would need to know how to do this or where I could attain information to do so. If it would require me to spend more than a few bucks then I would scrap the idea entirely.
If anyone could help regarding this I would be most appreciative.

Hi and welcome to the forum , I am unsure what could be available via a satellite dish in your area, here in the uk we have a few options and I guess your sister will, the dish size will make a difference to what can/cant be received along with other factors, (Costactc) would probably advise you best to my knowledge,

If you get no reply soon I will pm him and ask him to take a look here, all the best .

 

[archive10]

n

How to use dish as an antenna:
Knowing nothing and I mean nothing about satellite dishes that question is the best I could do, sorry.
Here's the story. The dish was installed many years ago. and then was abandoned being replaced by cable TV. Now it is there sitting on the roof doing nothing.
My sister doesn't use cable or anything: not watching TV much all she does is use a small antenna sitting next to her TV. SO a question came to mind. Would it be possible to make my sister use my dish to act as an external antenna therefore giving her better reception and perhaps a few free channels along the way--she lives close to the city center-Montreal.
If the answer is yes then I would need to know how to do this or where I could attain information to do so. If it would require me to spend more than a few bucks then I would scrap the idea entirely.
If anyone could help regarding this I would be most appreciative.

Dishes are mostly good for satellites reception.

If your sister i receiving tv over small antenna next to the tv, she is getting terrestrial signals (from a large antenna sitting somewhere in the vicinity, as opposed to a satellite sitting 40.000 km out into space).
Sat dishes will generally only giver better reception of sat signals.

The question to ak is:
What is the problem you are trying to solve? Does you sister have bad reception? Not enough channels?
If bad reception but enough channels is the case, get a larger UHF/HVF antenna for terrestrial reception (ideally on the roof).
If not enough channels, then get a subscription to Rogers or a sat provider.

 

[Terryl]

Take the dish off it's mount and leave the mast, then mount the antenna below to the mast, use the old coax from the satellite dish (bypassing any switch attached to the dish) and hook it to the TV's ANT input, do a channel scan on the TV.

http://www.radioshack.com/winegard-metrostar-omnidirectional-antenna/55030426.html

 

[Costactc]

The dish will not help matters at all and she would lose signal entirely. If you remove the dish and keep the mast you could install an ota antenna which would help with the local channels that she is watching. These antennas are quite inexpensive but will help your sister scan in CBC, CTV and other locals with better quality. Unfortunately, on ku band here in Canada there aren't any open Canadian fta channels except for the occasional feed. On c band, there are approximately 45 open Canadian channels on Anik F1R at 107.3w but that would require a dish of at least 8'.

 

[Archived-1]

From my reading he has a dish sat on roof doing nothing and was wondering what he could do with it to get his sister some channels, she is using an indoor aerial atm for tv reception,

And was wondering what could be achieved from using the dish that's not been used for a while we would need to know the size of the dish and what satellite it was pointing at when it was in use ?

The dish was installed many years ago. and then was abandoned being replaced by cable TV. Now it is there sitting on the roof doing nothing.
My sister doesn't use cable or anything: not watching TV much all she does is use a small antenna sitting next to her TV. SO a question came to mind. Would it be possible to make my sister use my dish to act as an external antenna therefore giving her better reception and perhaps a few free channels along the way

 

[Costactc]

His best bet would be to give Bell a call and subscribe or get local Videotron cable. If that dish is at least 90cm it could be pointed at Galaxy 19 at 97w which yields about 250 open channels but most are foreign. As I stated in my previous post, there are no open Canadian channels on ku band but some US networks can be scanned in.

 

[pintree3]

Wow. I thank you all indeed for your reply. I am totally pleased: Pleased at the quality of replies, amount of replies and speed of which replies came in. So once again thanks to all.
As to my question. As I said my sis doesn't really care much about TV or else yes, she certainly would be able to afford cable as so many here in Canada have (Bell and Videotron in Montreal).
The reason why I asked is because they are there (2 of them) doing nothing so why not put them to good use if I can. There was no intention of spending money. I see dishes like I see antennas: though quite different in their technology and function, they are the same in the fact that they are there to receive and translate signals. It is from this perspective that I thought I could maybe use a dish and make it ''think'' it's an antenna so to speak.
What would be its purpose? I read here and there about digital antennas; how they could improve your TV signal--giving you a better image--and how some of these can actually give you extra channels as well (maybe just advertising crap). So it was merely out of curiosity that my head suddenly said, "Hmm I wonder if I could use those dishes above in some way for her.
In other words it would be, as mentioned to give her a better signal--hers is OK, good enough, and maybe get her a few extra channels at no extra cost to me except for fiddling with its present wires or something I could makeshift at home. So if I had to spend C$5o (£28) I would not, hence me having said a few bucks. Oh yeah and both dishes are about 60cm I think--not that large. Once again thanks to all of you. I am impressed :-)

 

[Costactc]

60 cm dishes were originally used by Bell back in the day, now they are 48cm. Those dishes were probably used to pirate directv, dish and Bell back in the card and bin file days.

 

[BM300]

Can you get any US Satellites reception in Canada?
Are the C or KU bands?
If yes, Are there any FTA channels on them?

 

[Terryl]

Can you get any US Satellites reception in Canada?
Are the C or KU bands?
If yes, Are there any FTA channels on them?

Yes to #1 question.

And both "C" and lower "Ku" band are available (11.2 GHz to 12.2 GHz), the upper "Ku" band (12.2 GHz to 12.8 GHz) is for Dish, Bell and DTV, not available without a subscription.