Read my discovery dish review here and see how it stacks up with the other 2 popular L-band ACARS antennas, the 7 turn helix and RTL-SDR patch antenna.
The dish is now in use at my house receiving ACARS and STDC via a 2 way splitter. STDC went from 10db to 14, so a nice bump from the 3.5 turn helix into offset directTV dish I was using.
Discovery Dish RTLSDR-Blog L-Band ACARS
Quick ‘mini review’ of the Discovery Dish with L-Band ACARS feed. You can see the Crowdsupply campaign here. Myself and a few others backed it from day zero (or close to it). Took a few more months than expected for it to ship, but turns out, it was worth the wait. Make sure you get the...community.airframes.io
If you have any questions about the dish, let me know.
After a 4 month wait a received the antenna 2 days ago. I must say that so far i don't have much success with it as it barely pickup signals. At the moment i have a RTL-SDR-Blog patch antenna installed outside on my basement window with a suction mount. It is aimed at Inmarsat-4 F3 and is working well except for voice. I use it with an RSPDuo and SDRUno.
The dish is outside in my backyard mounted on a pole and pointing toward Inmarsat-3 F5. I pick up signals but they are very faint and are not always decoded. I tried to play with azimuth and elevation but it does not change much. The antenna is connected to the Bias-T antenna port on the RSPDuo and i also use SDRUno.
I will try to use the RTL-SDR-Blog patch antenna in the backyard and see what happens.
