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Comment by shantara | Hacker News Reader

I wonder what possible DIY applications could this dish have. Something that immediately comes to mind would be a radar or a transmitter for drones.

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Any DIY applications are very illegal in the US. There is basically nothing you can do with this dish other than it's original purpose that doesn't make you a felon.

Not true, as long as you’re only broadcasting in the appropriate frequency bands, it’s completely legal.

I doubt you can make it transmit far outside the bands it's designed for. Doubt any of those frequencies are unlicensed...

Isn't the entire frequency range that it is capable of transmitting in licensed spectrum?

Aren't there strict limitations on the maximum power output of any radio transmitters? At least in Germany there are quite low levels even for "free" frequency bands, so long-range FPV flight boosters/repeaters are already illegal, although they are working in a free band.

Yeah that's not at all how radio laws work in the US.

If you have a Ham license that gives you permission on the right bands, and you are careful to only transmit on those bands, then it's legal. There are power & frequency rules, among others.

It'd be a pretty big DIY project, and quite possibly unable to be done due to physics of the dish preventing you from shifting over to the legal (Ham licensed) frequency.

It's not on-face illegal to build radio equipment though.

If you hold an Amateur Radio license it would be entirely legal for you to repurpose this hardware for transmitting in one of the many allocated amateur bands, as long as the standard rules were followed. (No encryption, always identify yourself with your callsign.)

There is a long tradition of radio amateurs re-purposing other radio hardware. CB radios can often be retuned into the 10 meter band, wifi transceivers can work inside the 13cm band, for example.

Once you get into this kind of special purpose microwave gear, it's all made to only operate at a very specific frequency. So in this particular instance, no the dish really isn't able to be used or repurposed for anything else. The only thing it is ever gonna be capable of doing is listening or talking to Starlink. There's no shifting it into a nearby amateur band as you can do with some wide bandwidth LNBs or old commercial radios.

I only said it was legal. Not that it was practical. :)

And that is my entire point. The range that a starlink antenna can transmit or receive at is ~10.7GHz - 14.5 GHz. (possibly a bit wider than that, but not by much) All of which is licensed spectrum. And starlink only has a license for using that band if the beam is steered at least 25° above the horizon, and 25° away from the geostationary orbit band.

Good luck doing anything other than the intended use with that.

You can transmit using unlicensed equipment on Ham bands with appropriate amateur license, or on the ISM bands without a license under certain more restrictive power emission rules.

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