how far have you travelled to get a satellite dish?

[saj1985]

Not exactly collecting but I strapped a 1.8m glass fibre prime focus dish to the roof bars on my car about 16 - 17 years ago and took it from Wirral to the Vaucluse in France - some 950 miles (1500Km).

now that sounds like a mission lol

 

[PaulR]

Surprisingly easy. The car had built-in roof rails and I tied some cross bars on rather than using the clamps to lower the profile. The dish was then tied on face down, with some protective padding, and I just drove down as normal. The dish appeared to have little or no effect on aerodynamics.

 

[timo_w2s]

Now that's going to be hard to beat...

I'll give it a go. ;)

Back in 1998 I bought my 90cm dish in a dodgy part of down town Johannesburg, South Africa and brought it back to the UK. So about 9000km. The Virgin Atlantic staff were quite amused with me but they where very helpful. The dish has been in constant use up until this last winter when I had to take it down due to a house move. I plan to put it back up in the next few weeks.

My 1.2m Channel Master dish was bought off Captain Jack about 200km away a couple of years ago. I drove over to his place and picked it up. Luckily it just fitted inside the car with the seats down.

I also have a couple of dishes in Lapland which I've bought in Helsinki. The 1.2m Gibertini was put in on the roof of the car and driven to our cottage in the north last summer. That is 830km.

I've also taken quite a few dishes between UK and Finland over the years, about 2400km. Some driven over in cars (80cm dishes) and some smaller ones I've managed to fit in suitcases when flying (like my Sky and BSB dishes).

Actually until this thread appeared I'd never really thought about how far some of my dishes have travelled.

 

[Lazarus]

Great stuff.

Aren't we a sad committed bunch?!

 

[2cvbloke]

From Colne to somewhere outside of Blackburn and back, some of it on foot, most of it on the train though, was only a 60cm job that seemed to have been misplaced over the years...

(still have the 80cm I salvaged from a skip though)

 

[purplemarina]

261 miles new forest to yorkshire for my first cm 1,2 and pm, this was the longest trip. have been on 7 other "days out" all over the south of england to collect dishes satellite/ gear.

 

[saj1985]

I'll give it a go. ;)

Back in 1998 I bought my 90cm dish in a dodgy part of down town Johannesburg, South Africa and brought it back to the UK. So about 9000km. The Virgin Atlantic staff were quite amused with me but they where very helpful. The dish has been in constant use up until this last winter when I had to take it down due to a house move. I plan to put it back up in the next few weeks.

My 1.2m Channel Master dish was bought off Captain Jack about 200km away a couple of years ago. I drove over to his place and picked it up. Luckily it just fitted inside the car with the seats down.

I also have a couple of dishes in Lapland which I've bought in Helsinki. The 1.2m Gibertini was put in on the roof of the car and driven to our cottage in the north last summer. That is 830km.

I've also taken quite a few dishes between UK and Finland over the years, about 2400km. Some driven over in cars (80cm dishes) and some smaller ones I've managed to fit in suitcases when flying (like my Sky and BSB dishes).

Actually until this thread appeared I'd never really thought about how far some of my dishes have travelled.

so i got to ask, how comes you got the dish from south africa as oppose to local? was it cheaper abroad back then?

From Colne to somewhere outside of Blackburn and back, some of it on foot, most of it on the train though, was only a 60cm job that seemed to have been misplaced over the years...

(still have the 80cm I salvaged from a skip though)

colne to blackburn thats just over 15 miles i think...

261 miles new forest to yorkshire for my first cm 1,2 and pm, this was the longest trip. have been on 7 other "days out" all over the south of england to collect dishes satellite/ gear.

thats quiet some drive 261 miles

 

[Channel Hopper]

I carried back some sample feedhorns from Kilgore, Texas around 2003.

A 38cm dish in a box via Bangladeshi Airways from Dubai in 1993

The Unimesh 3.7 in the garden was collected from beyond Luton (the North ?) on my roof-rack some 15 years ago.

 

[Archive4]

Does the most travelled dish gain air miles?

 

[timo_w2s]

so i got to ask, how comes you got the dish from south africa as oppose to local? was it cheaper abroad back then?

My parents where living out there at the time and I spent quite a bit of time there too for holidays and they did seem quite a bit cheaper. I also bought my first digital satellite receiver there and a WorldSpace satellite radio too as they where cheaper than in Europe where digital satellite was only just getting getting popular and Sky was still analogue.

 

[archive10]

Ah, but I read the original intent with the thread as "how far have you travelled *specifically* to bring home a dish"...

Sound like @timo_w2s was in ZAF anyway, and the other trips to France and Lapland was to bring a dish there from home, not the other way around.
Come to think of it, I have driven dishes from DK to south-of-France several times, but that doesn't count either for this thread
Sample feedhorns from Texas are approaching proper long-distance, but @Channel Hopper does not state if he went to Texas solely to fetch the samples...

So what's the farthest you've really gone to bring home a dish...?

 

[timo_w2s]

Ah, but I read the original intent with the thread as "how far have you travelled *specifically* to bring home a dish"...

Sound like @timo_w2s was in ZAF anyway, and the other trips to France and Lapland was to bring a dish there from home, not the other way around.
Come to think of it, I have driven dishes from DK to south-of-France several times, but that doesn't count either for this thread
Sample feedhorns from Texas are approaching proper long-distance, but @Channel Hopper does not state if he went to Texas solely to fetch the samples...

So what's the farthest you've really gone to bring home a dish...?

OK I'm not that much of a satellite freak that I'd fly to South Africa just to save a few Rand on a 90cm dish! ;)

The main reason to drive up to Lapland last summer was to deliver and install the 1.2m dish but we also made the most of our time there and had a short break too. We didn't just drop it off and immediately turn back down to Helsinki just in case it broke the rules of a future thread on satellites.co.uk.

So perhaps the only "legitimate" one would be picking up the 1.2m Channel Master from CJ about 200km away. Mind you, that's going by motorway, no doubt I could have saved a few km had I have gone direct....

 

[sonnetpete]

When I got my Laminas, I had to walk out of the house and help him off the van with the box....yep, think that's about as far as I've gone.....

 

[Captain Jack]

Specifically to collect a dish - probably up to @scopus's place to collect it. About 150 miles from me. I've done similarly long-ish trips to Cornwall to collect a 1.2m Precision (@rolfw's friend was offering one).

 

[scopus]

Specifically to collect a dish - probably up to @scopus's place to collect it. About 150 miles from me. I've done similarly long-ish trips to Cornwall to collect a 1.2m Precision (@rolfw's friend was offering one).

The reverse for me, went to collect my 1.8 Channel Master from Taunton, about 170 miles.

 

[saj1985]

obviously i suppose it does depend on the size of the car but from reading some of the posts its seems that any dish 1.2m or above most likely has to go on the roof rack...

 

[archive10]

obviously i suppose it does depend on the size of the car but from reading some of the posts its seems that any dish 1.2m or above most likely has to go on the roof rack...

Yup.
I can fit a 1.2 meter into the rear seats of a VW Passat estate, but only after some wrangling.
Much better on roof rack attached to roof rack.
Above 1.2 you need a van or roof rack.
This is a 1.4:

 

[RimaNTSS]

Yes, confirm, in universals, 1,2m dish fits perfectly. For bigger dishes also trailer is fine. One fried of mine, after seeing my getting too many dishes, said I should get rid of this trailer. I replayed that then delivery will cost for me much more .

 

[Jumpstart]

The furthest I travelled was from my sofa to my front door, to open it to the sat engineer who installed the dish.

 

[Channel Hopper]

Yup.
I can fit a 1.2 meter into the rear seats of a VW Passat estate, but only after some wrangling.
Much better on roof rack attached to roof rack.
Above 1.2 you need a van or roof rack.
This is a 1.4:

View attachment 92792

I could 'just' fit a 1.5m into the back of a Saab 99 turbo coupe.