UNITRAC Satellite dish

[beavs2112]

Anyone heard of dishes made in Yugoslavia? An aluminum tag attached to the mount has painted in black (but highly faded now) "UNITRAC U90". I rescued these 2 perforated aluminum (not regular mesh) 3.0m prime focus antennae from a trailer park's mini cable tv headend. They are probably early 80's vintage. Price was good at 0.0$. It's stamped in the steel mount bracketry "made in yugoslavia". Also painted on the steel circular cover in the center of the dish "made in yugoslavia". They should work real good on ku-band also.

Kevin

 

[beavs2112]

more pics

 

[remlap]

Nice find, honestly reading Trailer Park and Canada made me think of Trailer Park Boys.

 

[mephisto]

These are actually produced by MZT (Metalski Zavod Tito) from Skopje, Macedonia under the brand of Unitrac, which suggests that they are maded for export (mostly for Canada and US) and by specifications should by a slightly better (and were a bit expensive) than those maded for the former Yugoslavia market. I got one too, but its a solid one. As for Ku band you can count on a slightly losses in the reception quality because of its mesh (porous) structure. Cheers!

 

[Analoguesat]

Good to see another unloved dish getting a good home

 

[beavs2112]

These are actually produced by MZT (Metalski Zavod Tito) from Skopje, Macedonia under the brand of Unitrac, which suggests that they are maded for export (mostly for Canada and US) and by specifications should by a slightly better (and were a bit expensive) than those maded for the former Yugoslavia market. I got one too, but its a solid one. As for Ku band you can count on a slightly losses in the reception quality because of its mesh (porous) structure. Cheers!

Mephisto thank you very much for sharing that info. My searches on the internet had turned up nothing useful previously.

 

[mephisto]

If its of some help, here are some old pictures and specifications from the 80s for those antennas from official manufacturer. Unfortunately, pics cant be enlarged, so the specifications may not be so clear to see.

 

[mephisto]

My advice for you would be not to disassembling petals and to hold em off in one piece, if its possible, because its pretty demanding to put em back together properly, which can affect the reception quality at the end. Are they with fixed mounts or with polarmounts? Can you post here pics of the backs of the dishes? Thanx in advance

 

[beavs2112]

My advice for you would be not to disassembling petals and to hold em off in one piece, if its possible, because its pretty demanding to put em back together properly, which can affect the reception quality at the end. Are they with fixed mounts or with polarmounts? Can you post here pics of the backs of the dishes? Thanx in advance

thanks for the advice and pics. i brought the dishes home in one piece so that is how they will stay. i am happy to report they are polar mounts. they look exactly like the black ones in your second brochure.

 

[stecle]

I found the H to H motor that was manufactured by this company. Probably hasn't been used in over 25 years. Hope to refurbish it and put it back into service.

 

[stecle]

The tear down and rebuild begins.

 

[Satfaca]

I posted this on the US forum ... but probably of interest for us europeans as well...

Congrats to your acquisition. This is one of the strongest if not the most powerfull H2H motors ever produced.
The motor is well known to the european satellite DX community thanks to DX Bozoth who's fitted his 3.7m one-piece Andrew giant on it. As far as I know it is still in operation even after almost 30 years.



I have up until recently used it to carry my 3.4m Prodelin which weighs some 350 lbs (160kg). Besides all the motor is so quiet one could literally sleep under it.



Note that the motor operates with 24V.

Here are some videos of the original MZT motor and antenna in action.