Using a small satellite dish as an 11 meter antenna

[King Mudduck]

I have been playing around with this thing to today and i actually got it to work. What i did was drill out the center of a direct TV dish and mounted a 4 foot fire stick antenna there. I have it up about 10 feet right now as i am still working the bugs out but after figureing out the ground for this antenna i have the SWR down to 1.2. It's seems to receive and transmit very well and it is very directional with great rejection which is what i wanted from the start of this little project. The only reason i tried this was out of boredom but i was wondering if any of you have tried something like this.

The reason i posted this here was because most hams like to experiment and i thought that some of you may have tried this in the past.

 

[Robb]

It's an interesting idea. But, how is the SWR? The dish doesn't exactly provide a tuned ground plane for it. Maybe if the dish was bigger? Th next thing you would have to do is put it on a antenna rotor after you work out the bugs...

 

[Sonwatcher]

But, how is the SWR?

The answer was in the first post. Looks like he did pretty well !

after figureing out the ground for this antenna i have the SWR down to 1.2.

 

[555]

i did a 10k 27 inch shaft on one of the old stye metal satilite dishes
what 8 or 9 foot across
the dish is on a 14 foot pole to clear the back part of the house
undid the motor and hardware
had the dish looking straight up
mounted the antenna dead center of the dish

swr are flat
talks as recieves pretty good
nothing big and bad with spactacular numbers but it worked

 

[Sonwatcher]

CDX-4540 and I pondered using a dish but couldn't figure out how it would work. Never gave a thought to mounting an antenna in the center .

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

All the dish is doing is providing a groundplane and nothing more. You will not see any gain nor directivity with it. Any directivity seen is a result of a freak null in the pattern. A dish antenna is simply far too small to work on 11m. in fact a six foot dish is too small for even 2m.


Gain of a parabolic antenna

 

[Sonwatcher]

Garth, that was why we figured it wouldn't work. But I guess we could have made use of it with a hamstick attached .

 

[W5LZ]

You might be surprised at what can be 'made' to 'work'. Doesn't say anything about how well it works, or what peculiar characteristics it may have, just that it 'works', sort of. Wanna try different things? Why not! The 'biggy' with that experimenting is that something usually gets torn up, one way or another. If you can't afford to loose it, don't use it. Sort of... Yeah, but it worked!
- 'Doc

 

[Wire Weasel]

This story is so ludicrous....why...it was even heard as far away as TrollLand

 

[Marconi]

Post some good pictures.

 

[King Mudduck]

All the dish is doing is providing a groundplane and nothing more. You will not see any gain nor directivity with it. Any directivity seen is a result of a freak null in the pattern. A dish antenna is simply far too small to work on 11m. in fact a six foot dish is too small for even 2m.


Gain of a parabolic antenna

Not to start a pissing war here but i used it last night on a 25 foot push up pole with a small TV antenna rotor and talked all over.....And yes i did my research on this while working out the bugs so i kinda understand why it should not work but i also know that it does work..... The rejection is killer and the damn thing talks great. It is very derectionail and if i put a 9+ signal on someone ( 10 miles from me ) while pointed in their direction then turn away the signal drops to under 2 s units.


Oh and i will get pics on here soon but it's really nothing to it. Drill the center out of a round Direct dish. Put your antenna stud and antenna in the center just as you would a mirror mount. Put it on a pole and play around with the ground until you get your swr down and have at it!


Will it out do a moonraker beam,no. But it was something fun to mess with at no coast to me and taking only a short time to build it was well worth it and it was fun...ain't that what this hobby is all about?

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

Anything will work as an antenna but that does not mean it will work well as an antenna.I am guessing that you mounted the antenna horizontle with the dish verticle if you used a rotator as you said. In that case then of course you would have deep nulls off the end (bottom) of the antenna.Not only is there a natural deep null it is shielded (albeit slightly) moreso that the "front". There is NO gain whatsoever to what you are using. The laws of physics still apply here.The dish is too small to exhibit gain. Just because you talked to a few guys with it does not mean it works good. I worked Florida and Europe with 25 watts and a dipole in the basement of my house but it was still a shitty antenna.

 

[King Mudduck]

Anything will work as an antenna but that does not mean it will work well as an antenna.I am guessing that you mounted the antenna horizontle with the dish verticle if you used a rotator as you said. In that case then of course you would have deep nulls off the end (bottom) of the antenna.Not only is there a natural deep null it is shielded (albeit slightly) moreso that the "front". There is NO gain whatsoever to what you are using. The laws of physics still apply here.The dish is too small to exhibit gain. Just because you talked to a few guys with it does not mean it works good. I worked Florida and Europe with 25 watts and a dipole in the basement of my house but it was still a shitty antenna.

I dont know.I thought a 200 mile trip on the little antena was good?

 

[park]

King Mudduck some people take this stuff way to seriously.

 

[949Jake]

I don't think he said it exhibited gain or stated gain figures, he just said it was directional. That would not surprise me since it is mounted horizontal. Have fun and good tinkering.