Making low-cost, light-weight, portable C/Ku-band dish antenna

[Vinay]

Dear friends,

Me and my Facebook friends are toying with the idea of making a semi-compact, low-cost, light-weight and portable 5 feet (152.4cm) C/Ku-band prime-focus antenna. This is primarily aimed at home or domestic users. It can be easily made and used by satellite / dth hobbyists and enthusiasts.

We will post the steps to make it, materials & tools needed, pics of complete assembled dish. Also we will review the signal strength/quality, performance of the antenna, limitations etc.

This will be handy to people who stay on rent as it can be dismantled easily and carried elsewhere or kept away packed. The reception will be quite decent almost comparable to professionally built system.
So keep watching... We will present this soon. (Thanks to all my friends who were fed up of devotional channels and inspired me to make this.)

The assembled reflector without the Stand/LNB arm will look like this:

 

[Karthik]

RE: Coming Soon: Making low-cost, light-weight, portable C-band dish antenna

How much cost ?

 

[Vinay]

RE: Coming Soon: Making low-cost, light-weight, portable C-band dish antenna

Karthik Friend,
We have made a rough calculation of the cost to be around Rs600 excluding LNB, wiring and connectors cost.
We are still working on making improvements in the design, reducing the cost to less than Rs600.

 

[Vikram]

RE: Coming Soon: Making low-cost, light-weight, portable C/Ku-band dish antenna

Waiting For Full detail Of Receptions strength & How to make ,
Don't Trying To Reduce Price Coz Rs.600 Is already cheap. :c

 

[M@zh@R]

RE: Coming Soon: Making low-cost, light-weight, portable C/Ku-band dish antenna

How much this Dish is cheaper than normal 5ft Dish?

 

[Vinay]

RE: Coming Soon: Making low-cost, light-weight, portable C/Ku-band dish antenna

Ok Vikram Sir, I will post a detailed review with images.

About cost, it will vary from place to place depending on the rates of raw materials etc.

I agree with you Rs600 is already cheap.

 

[Bapun]

RE: Coming Soon: Making low-cost, light-weight, portable C/Ku-band dish antenna

It will be fiber dish only?

 

[Vinay]

RE: Coming Soon: Making low-cost, light-weight, portable C/Ku-band dish antenna

Mazhar Sir: This is almost Rs1000 to 2000 cheaper than a normal 6 feet solid C-band dish.

Bapun Sir: This is not a fiber dish. The ribs of the dish are of Aluminium alloy making it light-weight and durable, rust-proof. The reflector panels can be of either treated cloth or minute-holed mesh as per the users need.

 

[Vinay]

RE: Coming Soon: Making low-cost, light-weight, portable C/Ku-band dish antenna

So Step 1: Calculating and Plotting of the Parabola.

My dish is 5 feet in diameter and it is prime focus. I am going to double the offset focus curve that I have plotted by using co-ordinates below.

Next: I will post the final curve plotted on a newspaper.

 

[Vinay]

RE: Coming Soon: Making low-cost, light-weight, portable C/Ku-band dish antenna

Step 2: Some more calculations for the intermediate points of the curve and the final plotting on a newspaper.

Plotting the curve on the x and y axes:

Join the points to form the final curve: