What would you do with a big satellite dish?

That's right. I have just become the proud owner of a big oldschool satellite dish. It is made from fiberglass and has some of its support/mounting hardware. I have some ideas about what I want to do with it but I'd be glad to hear your ideas too!

Brainstorm away!

Comments

[jeff-o]

Use it for free satellite tv if you can. Otherwise, paste a zillion mirrors to it and use it to generate power by boiling water.

[yokozuna]

+1.

[kelseymh]

Call the Greys.

[orksecurity]

Directional microphone.

Very long distance WiFi.

High-tech birdbath.

Paint it camo and pretend you're a spy. Or grey as a fake military installation. Or take it further and use it as an element in a junk sculpture ray gun cannon, satellite/spaceship, teleporter, etc. Especially if there's enough of the mount to motorize so it makes threatening aiming motions.

There's got to be a good use for it upside down, as a dome rather than dish, but I'm not thinking of one right now.

Use it for actual satellite reception. Talk to a ham radio operator; it's less easy now that more traffic is binary but I believe there's some stuff still worth listening to/looking at.

Use it as a small radio telescope. The SETI folks might be interested in having you set up as part of their network...?

[snotty]

@ "threatening aiming motions" HA! I love it.

[SirNoodlehe]

make a replica of the Death Star

[framistan]

If you live in the USA, I would use it to pick up GALAXY 19 satellite. That satellite has about 200 channels on it that are NOT SCRAMBLED. They are called "FTA" channels which means free-to-all or free-to-air. All you need is a universal LNB and a FTA satellite box which you could get for almost nothing on ebay or craigslist (used). The large dish will pick up the Ku band and it will also pick up the "C" band channels!!! My smaller dish only picks up the Ku band so i "ONLY" get about 200 channels!

[2hot2hack]

put some cereal in it and some milk and enjoy

[iceng]

I vote for steam generator, your ibles show you are capable builder.

[sshuggi]

I see you tagged it with a lot of solar related words, and that's what I was thinking. You could use a bunch of old cd's that would otherwise end up in a landfill and make a boiler for an steam engine or an outdoor oven... anything really. Depending on how it's made, you could bury it in your yard/landscaping and make a lily pond with some happy fishies in it. Note on the cd's: The cheap CD-R (read only) type are more reflective than the more expensive RW (Read/Write) kind.