Just Sharing This The Plague Dish

[hexah]

I spotted this familiar looking dish in a news report about the UK building plague (Ebola) camps in Sierra Leone.




Look at the size of the concrete plinth it is on. I wonder if the builder thought the dimensions in mm were in cm!

I think it is for data (internet via satellite) and television. I have no idea what satellite it is looking at.

Any ideas?

 

[Terryl]

It could just be a soil cap, in some areas we had to do that to keep the footing from being washed away during heavy rain, or in ares with very soft soil conditions, or no hard pan within 3 to 6 feet of the top of grade.

You pour the standard footing, then a 3 foot (or larger) soil cap all around, keeps the dish from tipping in the soft soil when it gets wet.

 

[Lazarus]

All to no avail if any of those youngsters kick a football and it hits the dish face!

 

[archive10]

I think it is for data (internet via satellite) and television. I have no idea what satellite it is looking at.

Any ideas?

Some wild speculation: it is probably one of the more westwardly sats, as SL is fairly close to the Equator, and the dish seems to be looking up at about 50-70 degrees or so. It's certainly a Skyware Rx/Tx dish (looks like a type 123 or possibly a 125), and I seem to remeber it has something like 22 degress offset, so it's not directly overhead. Given that this is not taken early in the morning (it least it doesn't look like that), I'd say it's probably looking a little westwards. But that's just me guessing.

 

[Channel Hopper]

Some wild speculation: it is probably one of the more westwardly sats, as SL is fairly close to the Equator, and the dish seems to be looking up at about 50-70 degrees or so. It's certainly a Skyware Rx/Tx dish (looks like a type 123 or possibly a 125), and I seem to remeber it has something like 22 degress offset, so it's not directly overhead. Given that this is not taken early in the morning (it least it doesn't look like that), I'd say it's probably looking a little westwards. But that's just me guessing.

[Pedant hat on]
About 10 degrees north if I recall. The shadows confirm the sun is around 60/70 degrees above the horizon, and since the dish has to point south (unless it has been vandalised), I'd guess this is late morning and the dish is probably pointing at a satellite very close to the highest point of the arc.
[/Pedant hat on]

 

[archive10]

[Pedant hat on]
About 10 degrees north if I recall. The shadows confirm the sun is around 60/70 degrees above the horizon, and since the dish has to point south (unless it has been vandalised), I'd guess this is late morning and the dish is probably pointing at a satellite very close to the highest point of the arc.
[/Pedant hat on]

[scrutinizer hat on]
I agree with late in the morning as a good bet, or perhaps just around noon, judging by the shadow length. This is still winter, remember.
As far as I can make out, the shadow goes if not exactly perpendicular, but clearly sidways out from the pole. At least above the 45 degree mark. If my time-guesstimates are to be observed, the dish will be pointing west-of-south. Say, 30 degress or so from south. At this lattitude this would be pointing at something like 20 degrees west. Perhaps on one of the Intelsat birds for data uplink/downlink?
[scrutinizer hat off]

 

[hexah]

[tin foil hat on]


It could be Intelsat 10-02 at 1w or Intelsat 908 at 24w. Intelsat are major players in the data and telecoms market. BBC World Service broadcasts to that part of west Africa on C band from 1w.

I wish I kept the Intelsat marketing stuff I had decades ago it would be interesting to look at it again.


[/tin foil hat off]

 

[hexah]

It could just be a soil cap, in some areas we had to do that to keep the footing from being washed away during heavy rain, or in ares with very soft soil conditions, or no hard pan within 3 to 6 feet of the top of grade.

You pour the standard footing, then a 3 foot (or larger) soil cap all around, keeps the dish from tipping in the soft soil when it gets wet.

That is similar to the procedure for permafrost areas, though it goes deeper there as there is often a summer melt at the surface. That said the UK is so damp it can only take a few ice days to start frost heave.

A number of UK cable heads years ago also had big plinths like that for rain subsidance.

No cold in Sierra Leone but heavy rain off the sea must be the problem then.

 

[hexah]

All to no avail if any of those youngsters kick a football and it hits the dish face!

If one of those ebola infected kids kicked a ball it would probably kill them.

It's like having Darwin as goalkeeper.

 

[PaulR]

If you have Ebola I don't think you'd be up to kicking any balls!