[BC] Comtech versus Patriot dishes

[Glen Kippel]

On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 8:06 PM, Mike McCarthy <towers at mre.com> wrote:
>Without stiffening of the dish frame, the Patriot line tends to bend and
>flex in high winds. They're are a PIA to assemble.

>Buy a DH Satellite dish from central Wisconsin (make sure you order the
>galvanized mount kit as the normal mount is only painted). One piece dish
>and easily withstands the winds of the midwest.  It can also be assembled
>and moved by a team of men.  Their own truck delivers the dish too.

>---------------
 
I will second that.  Assembling an 8-segment dish is the pits to get it true.  I got a 3.3-m DH dish for KHCS and it was a cinch to set up.  You can "un-true" it if you need to, to avoid interference from an adjacent bird.  Everybody said to get a 3.7 or 3.8-meter dish, but I found that the signal I wanted was "hot" in southern California and not so much from the adjacent birds.  I figured that the 1.4-degree beamwidth of the bigger dish vs. the 1.5-degree spec on the 3.3-meter was not worth the extra $1000.  It has worked out perfectly, without a hitch.  Sometimes it pay$ to do a little engineering.