Newbie Here Refurbish Old Satellite Dish

Graham Grable

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Hello, I am looking into getting this dish for free, which I believe is a Channel Master/Andrew Type 243 dish. Is there a surefire way to see if it is, or can any of you help me identify it? Its seen its day in the weather, and I'm curious if I should be concerned or not. Is there a special paint that I can use to make it look nice and pretty? I've attached a couple of photos of it.
rSIGYif.jpg
3ukqCxj.jpg
 
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yes, that it a slightly battered 243 (or possibly another variant - reflector is the same).
There's a "channel master" embossed near the top of the upper half of the dish.
You may want to paint the surface to avoid the mesh rusting....
Car paint will do fine.
Should still perform fine, though.

Can you post pic of the mount (ground-stand).
This determines the difficulty in mounting it elsewhere...
 

Graham Grable

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yes, that it a slightly battered 243 (or possibly another variant - reflector is the same).
There's a "channel master" embossed near the top of the upper half of the dish.
You may want to paint the surface to avoid the mesh rusting....
Car paint will do fine.
Should still perform fine, though.

Can you post pic of the mount (ground-stand).
This determines the difficulty in mounting it elsewhere...
Yeah, of course. Thanks for your help. Is there a particular type of paint that I should look for? Also in terms of mounting it elsewhere, what would you think the difficulty in setting it up to track satellites across the sky would be? Again, thanks for your help.
N0jJtry.jpg
 
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1) Re paint
As you can see the mesh embbeded in the dish, what is coming off is actually plastic layer(s).
If you are just toying around to see what you can make of it, you might as well leave as is to avoid more stuff coming off.
If you do want to paint it (most auto-paints will do, you will need to carefully clean the dish with a soft sponge and soapy water (dish-washing liquid).
This is to get a base for the paint, otherwise that will come peeling off soon too.

2) Re mount
You have the standard 2.4 Az/El mount, and it looks there is very little rust. Good stuff.
To mount this elsewhere, you need a 6,5" outside-diametere pole embedded into something very solid.
Most people make this concrete, but you will need a very firm base, mening lot of concrete.
This is to ensure the dish don't move (let alone fly away) in stormy weather.
See set-up manuals available on the net for details for a "standard" install.

For tracking the satellite arc, you need a VERY heavy-duty polar mount.
These are generally not available, the only "real" polar-tracking mount are professional types, such as made by apexsat in Germany (http://www.apexsat.com/motorized-systems/polar-arc/index.htm).
These are very good, but also very expensive.
Alternative is to resort to DIY - but I recommend you get a welding course and an account that the local ironmongers.
If you want to start with sat-dx'ing, get a much smaller dish to start off with (e.g. 100 cm), then you can see if it's something for you.

What sort of sats would you be interested in recieving?
 
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You may find this worth reading.
 

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Graham Grable

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1) Re paint
As you can see the mesh embbeded in the dish, what is coming off is actually plastic layer(s).
If you are just toying around to see what you can make of it, you might as well leave as is to avoid more stuff coming off.
If you do want to paint it (most auto-paints will do, you will need to carefully clean the dish with a soft sponge and soapy water (dish-washing liquid).
This is to get a base for the paint, otherwise that will come peeling off soon too.

2) Re mount
You have the standard 2.4 Az/El mount, and it looks there is very little rust. Good stuff.
To mount this elsewhere, you need a 6,5" outside-diametere pole embedded into something very solid.
Most people make this concrete, but you will need a very firm base, mening lot of concrete.
This is to ensure the dish don't move (let alone fly away) in stormy weather.
See set-up manuals available on the net for details for a "standard" install.

For tracking the satellite arc, you need a VERY heavy-duty polar mount.
These are generally not available, the only "real" polar-tracking mount are professional types, such as made by apexsat in Germany (http://www.apexsat.com/motorized-systems/polar-arc/index.htm).
These are very good, but also very expensive.
Alternative is to resort to DIY - but I recommend you get a welding course and an account that the local ironmongers.
If you want to start with sat-dx'ing, get a much smaller dish to start off with (e.g. 100 cm), then you can see if it's something for you.

What sort of sats would you be interested in recieving?
Thanks for all your help. I'm actually helping to build my university's first CubeSat, and we are in the process of creating a ground station for it. Our dean has this dish that he doesn't want, and I'm finding out if we could use this dish for our data downlink, and potentially for others if we work with other teams. We have a website at smallsat.uga.edu if you want to check it out. I found some manuals online today, so that should give me a good start.
 

RimaNTSS

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Is there a special paint that I can use to make it look nice and pretty?
Dish of this size looks nice and pretty does not matter what kind and what the condition of paint. Nice find, congratulations! But, if serious, yes, it is better to paint it just to hide bare metal mesh preventing it's rusting.
 

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One thing about paints, avoid glossy and especially metallic paints. Anything else will be fine
 

Graham Grable

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Quick question. Would any of you have any estimates on how much this dish would weigh? I'm finding similarly spec'd dishes, but those weights vary from 400-900 lbs.
 

Vipersan

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..Why can I not find stuff like this ?

As to weight ...I'd hire a fork lift if a CM 1.2 is anything to judge by ..
Eeeek ..

I wonder if after killrust ...you might be able to use Gelcoat ...
the stuff that is used to get a smooth finish on fibreglass ??
Fibreglass bathtubs are also made this way ..
rgds
VS
 

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Hi Graham welcome to our forum. st1 forgot to mention that the channel master ID stamp will be on the backside of the dish. see picture. so yours should say 2.4 meter on it. don't worry about the part # being different.
That dish is an azimuth/elevation style meaning its designed to be aimed/pointed at one satellite only. It's difficult to modify them to be a polar mount style so it will track the Clarke belt. Interestingly you dish is a transmit/receive version with what looks like 2 BUCs with a redundancy switch.
Also there are 2 main satellite Tv forums for hobbiests like us either <center>Ricks Satellite Wildfeed and Backhaul Forum</center> or SatelliteGuys.US
I prefer satguys but it has a lot of ads.
Best wishes
Kevin
 

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