[ggrrrrr23456]

Anyone have any luck homebrewing an antenna using an old Dish Network satellite dish? There’s one installed on our house with a cable coming down inside. We don’t subscribe but I’m wondering if there’s a way to use it as an antenna for other stations/satellites without a subscription. No hacking here, just picking up publicly available channels.

[Mad Dawgg]

Yes, A friend of mine has been making HDTV Antennas out of old Sat dishes.

Ge:t you one of these: that is an old 75ohm converter that was used to transform a cable signal to antenna connection on older TVs. You can still get them at Radio shack.

Splice in the wired end to your dish.(you'll need to cut and splice the wires that lead to the element in the middle of the dish) Now if the dish was installed properly it should have one of these: (it may have more connections usually 2 or four) make sure the coaxial side of the 75 Ohm transformer is connected to it and then connect the other side to the cable that will run inside your house. This is important because it grounds your antenna and can protect against lighting. There should be a grounding wire that runs from this down to a metal rod that sticks in the ground.

The dish will need to be pointed in the direction the TV stations that you are trying to pickup are located.