On Thu, 6 Mar 2008 08:44:01 +0000 (UTC), (Geoffrey
S. Mendelson) wrote:

Stan wrote:
The dish is a parbolic reflector, which won't work on signals much
"longer" (i.e. bigger wavelength) than satellite frequencies. Probably
useless for UHF TV signals.

If it's a satellite dish, it's probably for the Ku band. (around
10gHz). It has some ham radio applications and there are FTA (free
to the air) satellite signals out there.

If it has the LNB (the antenna, low noise amplifier and block
converter combination) still attached, you can get a cheap digital
receiver for around $100.

You can find out more information at LyngSat and Tele-Satellite
magazine's websites.

You may find that it's worth the money for the FTA signals,
you may not.

You also should check the satellite coverage maps to make sure
that there is enough signal beamed to your location. For example,
there is a set of "birds" which I can point a dish at and "see",
but there is no signal at all here. Too bad, they have BBC, ITV
and whole bunch of free programs my kids would like.

Astra 2D has a very limited footprint.