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Recycling a almost new satellite dish

Bill4728

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We recently bought a house that has a almost new Direct TV (swim 3) satellite dish

How to I get rid / recycle this thing?

We live in the greater Seattle area

TIA
 

DaveNV

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Take it to the dump?
 

moonstone

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I don't know about in the USA (or with Direct) but in Canada there is a resale market for used dishes. People buy a vacation home & want satellite TV there, if they have an additional dish they can install it themselves & bring their receiver box from home. Bell (our local dish provider) wont sell extra dishes to their customers wanting to do that, they have to buy a whole new satellite package for the vacation place.


~Diane
 

DeniseM

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Are you sure the satellite dish doesn't belong to the company that installed it? When we stopped our Dish service, they came out and picked up the dish.
 

Bill4728

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Are you sure the satellite dish doesn't belong to the company that installed it? When we stopped our Dish service, they came out and picked up the dish.
It would if we had ordered the service BUT since the former owners ordered the dish, the company will not even talk to us.

Thanks for the idea of selling it I may look into that

Bill
 

DeniseM

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That is odd - I had 2 relatives die in the past year, and the phone and cable companies were grateful that I returned their equipment.
 

geist1223

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In Salem Oregon the Companies rarely reclaim their "Dish" after some cancels. Eventually the current home owner takes them down and trashes them.
 

easyrider

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I occasionally remove satellite equipment off our rentals when people move. I place the stuff by the road with a free sign on it. So far they are gone fairly fast.

Bill
 

WinniWoman

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This reminds me of when many, many years ago we had one of those Gigantic satellite dishes on our property. The kind that also moved when you changed the channels. My husband took it down and dismantled it into pieces. Then he placed it at the end of our driveway and like everything else we put down there someone took it! We now just have the pole still left there, which is in cement and hidden amongst the trees on our forested property.
 

RX8

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At least in my moving experience DirecTV instructed us to leave the old satellite dish behind. I assume that they are hoping/anticipating the new resident would want DirecTV.
 

BJRSanDiego

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If you remove the LNB (electronics) a small child could use it for a snow saucer. :)

Some other uses (especially if you like playing with electronics): Place a microphone close to the focal point of the dish and you have a directional microphone (identifying song birds?). At rite aid they used to sell a really low end "hearing aid" that had a microphone in the main unit and ear buds. I tried it and it worked reasonably well.
If you were in a very fringe area for either wifi or even cell coverage and you placed your wifi antenna or cell phone at the focal point, you'd pick up a stronger signal. About 10 years ago, I found that I could pick up a neighbor's wifi from about 1/3 mile. If you need to adjust the coverage of your home router, placing the dish in certain spots (trial and error) could either boost or reduce the signal.
Bird bath.
Yard art

Or put it in the trash....
 

PigsDad

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At least in my moving experience DirecTV instructed us to leave the old satellite dish behind. I assume that they are hoping/anticipating the new resident would want DirecTV.
Yep, that is my experience with DirecTV as well -- the company does not want the dishes back.

To the OP: put a ad on Craig's List in the free items section, and someone will come an pick it up within a few hours, I would bet.

Kurt
 

dioxide45

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I don't know about in the USA (or with Direct) but in Canada there is a resale market for used dishes. People buy a vacation home & want satellite TV there, if they have an additional dish they can install it themselves & bring their receiver box from home. Bell (our local dish provider) wont sell extra dishes to their customers wanting to do that, they have to buy a whole new satellite package for the vacation place.


~Diane
This is big in Ontario in Cottage Country. Every weekend the throngs of people go from the Golden Horseshoe and take the trek north. Many probably with their set top box, or they just have a second set top box at the cottage that is not connected to the phone line or internet so the service provider does not know where it is.
 

moonstone

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This is big in Ontario in Cottage Country. Every weekend the throngs of people go from the Golden Horseshoe and take the trek north. Many probably with their set top box, or they just have a second set top box at the cottage that is not connected to the phone line or internet so the service provider does not know where it is.

Yes, when Bell first started their ExpressVu satellite service you could buy (or rent) the receiver box and extra dishes for a vacation property. My dad (who was a Bell employee at the time) bought 2 extra dishes. One was installed at the cottage for summertime viewing (with the receiver from their house) and the other was mounted on a tripod and taken (with the receiver from their house) in their motorhome to Florida. They enjoyed the same programming as at home for a couple of winters until Bell launched new satellites who's signals couldn't be picked up south of the border. Now we cant even pick up the signal in Youngstown NY when we camp there.

Our DD recently bought her first home about 20 mins north of us and wanted to take her Bell receiver that we bought for her to use on our Bell service while living with us. DH called Bell and told them we had purchased a vacation property and wanted to take one of our 5 receivers up to use in it but needed a dish installed as it was a new build home. Bell refused saying they stopped that practice years ago and now people need to arrange for a separate service for each residence! :mad: After a bit of searching on Kijiji we found somebody selling a Bell dish that was on their home when they moved in for $15. Since they had cable TV the dish wasn't needed. DH was able to mount the dish on her roof & connect the pre-run wires with little trouble. DD is now enjoying Bell ExpressVu for a fraction of the cost of a whole new service, since she just makes small contribution to our monthly bill. If or when her receiver needs updating (for new channels...) she'll just unplug it and bring it to our house to connect to our phone line for a while & Bell is none the wiser!:cheer:


~Diane
 

VegasBella

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When we bought our house it had a satellite dish attached and we wanted to get rid of it. So I called the company and they would not come get it. So I had my handyman take it down and then I offered it free on Craigslist. I assume it was reused or recycled by the person who took it. My experience with recycling is that in my area you have to completely disassemble something like that and then recycle each piece individually. It's not an easy process.
 

Blues

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If you remove the LNB (electronics) a small child could use it for a snow saucer. :)

BJRSanDiego beat me to it -- The only part with any value is the LNB, the small piece of electronics on the arm at the focal point. The metal dish itself is not worth the cost of picking it up. Indeed, when I had satellite internet, which had 2 LNBs in one dish, they told me to remove the LNBs and send them back. They didn't want anything to do with the dish itself. It sat unused in my "back 40" for years, until during a house remodelling project the contractor brought a dumpster, and it went into that.

I had always threatened to paint concentric circles in it and use it for target practice, but alas...
 
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