What's the wackiest idea for a suitable sculpture (min. 900mm diameter
> footprint, at least 775mm high) that you can come up with (and that an
> anal-retentive planning officer can't argue against) ?
>
> Answers on a postcard^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H usenet post please, if I end up
> realizing your idea I'll send a photo of the finished product to the > winner.
If you put the dish on a "portable" mount, ie. not fixed and at ground level, like with a tripod, would it not be planning exempt?
Matt
Not sure if they require planning permission anyway, but...
1) Put it in a Wendy House 2) Put it on a Wendy HOuse and say it's a toy dish...In message , Medallion Man wrote
What's wrong with actually painting the dish?
I've seen painted dishes where the shape of the dish is effectively hidden i.e. wartime ship camouflage type patterns in suitable colours.
Make the dish look like bush/tree by painting branches and leaves. Paint it same colour as it's background.
Disguise it as a sundial? BAH
What are you trying to pick up? A dish shouldn't work if flat if you have the usual off-set dish and not many people have prime focus dishes? I had a large motorised dish down the garden sticking up between the shed and garage unless you are requiring two simultaneous feeds. Concealed it reasonably well.
The present one is in a position between two houses which makes it impossible to see the other satellite except if I moved it forward quite a bit, which would invalidate the plannig permission. I'm trying to avoid having to reapply.
Probably, but with the neighbours' kids playing in and around the garden and driveway it probably won't stay aligned for long either, that's why I'd prefer to be able to bolt it down.
Done that with the first one (matt brick red, contours broken up with yellow and black to blend into the brick wall background). Still needed p/p. I might stick the new one in the back garden and camouflage it to match the shrubbery. but it would need to be on a 9' mast to "see" over the roofline of the house, and building a mast that can take 900N wind load at 3 meters = 2700Nm of bending force is a non-trivial job. Fat steel post, concrete foundation and guy wires aplenty - I may have to start a separate thread for advice on that ;-(
A sundial pointing eastish will look a bit silly, but being silly to get around planning restrictions is the point of the exercise, after all ;-) Going on the shortlist, thank you.
Which birds are you trying to see?
Could you get away with a smaller dish for one of them?
I'm sure that Tele-Satellite magazine had a review of a dish in a radome (I think it was a specially shaped dish inside, of 40cm which was claimed to be equivalent to a 60cm).
These were intended for countries with censorship of what you are allowed to receive and were reckoned to be reasonable if the signal strength was OK..
I couldn't find the review, but while looking did spot this....
Depends on wavelength.
Certainly soe micowaves will go through polyester/glass very easily, some will not.
The problem tends to be rainwater on them...
To compensate, you have to go for an even bigger dish.
Mmm. What freq are satellites on?
>
Known as Ku band.
About 10.7 to 12.7 GHz Ku band in Europe (for the most part).
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
Heard of these for GSM/UMTS applications, but that's an order of magnitude below Sat frequencies (0.9/1.8GHz vs 11.5GHz). Do you know of a supplier ?
I tried some plate glass yesterday during the same experiment that showed the estate agent signs to be transparent. The glass caused significant attenuation, so no go I'm afraid.
Actually, it does work with an offset dish, I tried it and reception was spotless - if you think about the geometry involved, the dish is just a reflector allowing the LNB to "see upward" at an angle of about
27 degrees. Whether it does that like this:. . . \ . \ . \ .) . / . / O---/ LNB
or like this:
LNB . O . |. . | . . | . . \ . . / \ . . / \ . / -
doesn't matter. In fact, with the dish nearly horizontal it is possible to modify the angle at which the LNB "illuminates" the dish and make the whole thing even shallower. I tried it just by holding the LNB in my hand and moving the dish around. Fiddly, but there was enough link budget to get away with it.
That should help with hiding it. But how ?
What I was getting at was whether you could get away with a smaller dish (in an enclosure) for one of them.
If this is for the Astra 1 or 2 or Hotbird constellations then I would think there is a reasonable chance of it working.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
Mmm. Though that punched through small amounts of water.
recycles the shot from the TV signal.
It has a nice domed fiberglass cover and sits in the lawn like a relic from Planet Zarg. IMM was born in one.
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