Can I do anything useful/fun with an old DirecTV dish?

[mirrorshades]

We discontinued our satellite TV service last year but never did anything with the dish. Today, we've had some work done on the exterior of our home and the dish was taken down because it was in the way. Since we no longer have service, I figured there's no real reason to have it put back up.

Just wondering if I would be able to do anything interesting with the dish from a ham radio/scanning perspective -- the Google has shown me that "bird bath", "jacked up WiFi antenna", and "cell phone booster" are options, but I'd prefer to keep it closer to the originally-designed purpose if possible.

One guy tweaked his to bring in HD broadcast TV signals, which I thought was kind of neat: http://imgur.com/a/5ORVZ

Is there anything that I could do with it from a practical perspective related to radio? I'm assuming it's better suited for UHF-ish or higher frequencies, so maybe GMRS or the like?

Thanks for any suggestions!

EDIT: This is a standard dish, not an HD one... if that would make a difference.

 

[wtp]

well.....

a fire pit as you listen to your radio ?

 

[mirrorshades]

Already have one.

 

[ko6jw_2]

I saw a design for a two meter slot antenna using a direct TV dish. It was written up by a local ham - W6NBC. I believe it was in QST several months ago. You can probably find it on-line. I have a surplus dish, but have not gotten around to trying this design.

 

[kibler]

You could modify the dish arm a little, invest $$$$ for an KU LNBF and an FTA sat receiver! Aim it at a couple different sat locations and pick up a lot of 'WILDFEED' College football here in about another month or so!!!!......that be kinda fun, if you could do it! Hole different breed of cats?

 

[trentbob]

... plant flowers in it...

 

[Thayne]

I left one on a flat roof (not visible from the ground) and put some leftover chicken bones from a barbecue in it and it attracted a whole bunch of crows the next morning.
The good thing about it is that the crows scared away the 2 pigeons that have been roosting under my eaves. They ate one and the other one never came back.

Now it is in the dumpster and the crows are gone too.

Life is good

 

[eddie8965]

http://www.w1ghz.org/antbook/conf/Helical_feed_antennas.pdf

 

[ko6jw_2]

Check out w6nbc.com for the 2 meter slot from the Direct TV dish and a lot of other antenna projects. Much better than a BBQ or planter. His point is that it makes a stealth ham radio antenna where CC&R's prohibit antennas, but they can't keep you from having a satellite dish.

 

[K7MEM]

Those Direct TV dishes do make a good WiFi antenna. My shack is in the barn, which is about 100 yards from my house. When I am in my shack, my laptop gets some signal, but my desktop doesn't get enough signal to do anything. So I took the LNA/B and stripped out the guts. Then I added a piece of printed circuit board, with a WiFi antenna configured on it. I mounted it just outside my shack and pointed it at the house. I modified the WiFi board in the desktop to use a F-Type connector and used RG-6 to connect everything. Now the desktop gets plenty of signal.

The only trouble with the dish is aiming. It's not obvious where the aiming point is initially.

 

[SCPD]

Slightly off topic

Check out w6nbc.com for the 2 meter slot from the Direct TV dish and a lot of other antenna projects. Much better than a BBQ or planter. His point is that it makes a stealth ham radio antenna where CC&R's prohibit antennas, but they can't keep you from having a satellite dish.

I know someone who made a fake satellite dish out of one of the plastic saucers kids use to shoot down snow hills, to get around CC&R. By using plastic, it worked out to be omnidirectional.