Unfortunately the fixings, of which there must be thousands, are not stainless steel. Hmmm.
I spoke to the founder and original owner of Patriot yesterday, and he indicated that the normal Patriot products came with all-stainless steel fittings.
However, as with anything else in this world, some customers wanted to lower the price on certain configuration of the product.
This meant that some volume orders where not fitted with stainless steel fixings, but rather something he referred to as "galvazinced" or something like that.
I don't remember the exact term he used. Probably was a tradename from 20 years ago.
As I understood it, those dishes were typically used by tv networks that supplied regional tv systems in rural areas - the tv company provided dish as a downlink mechanism for receiving and distributing channels from a satellite package, and often gave the dish away without additional cost. But like Razors, where the handle (dish) is free because it really makes you buy the blades (tv programme redistro fees), the end customer always end up paying...
But because of this arrangement, the tv networks wanted as low cost hardware as possible, and low shipping costs. The PF Patriots were specifically designed to be shipped in compact form - hence the 16 petals and part-alu construction - and field-assembled by two persons without lifts or cranes, and also tp be assembled without need for fine tuning etc beyond the bolt-tightening procedure described in the manual. This matched the needs of the tv networks spot on, and at the height of the booming market, Patriot sold 3.8 meters by the container...
