1. DXer REPORT Satellite Enthusiast in Budapest, Hungary
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• Receives every satellite than can
possibly be received.
• Acquired almost all of his 50 dishes
in used condition.
• Interested in the various dish
reception technologies
• Able to fabricate missing
components
■ Dishes on the roof? Dishes on the wall?
It almost looks like they’re growing out
of the house. Sure enough, it’s György’s
antenna farm. He’s a satellite enthusiast from
Budapest, Hungary.
218 TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine — 02-03/2012 — www.TELE-satellite.com www.TELE-satellite.com — 02-03/2012 — TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine 219

2. DXer REPORT Satellite Enthusiast in Budapest, Hungary
A Fulltime
Satellite DXer
What could be better in life than actu-
ally living your dream? What could be
better for a satellite enthusiast than to
erect as many dishes as he wants to?
It’s exactly this dream that György in
Budapest is living right now. He has
managed to install 11 satellite antennas
on the roof of his house plus another
20 dishes on the side of his house and
■ Can you find György? He’s on a secondary wall. “Here in my ga-
standing on the first floor rage there are more dishes”, he says to
between two dishes. Two us on a visit to his home in Budapest’s
large 2.2-meter antennas are
leaning on the garden wall, district 13, not too far from the center.
unfortunately, there’s no
place to install these monster
dishes as yet.
György (that’s George in English) has
installed not only normal antennas, but
he can show us all the different dish
variants that have existed over time,
from offset and prime focus dishes to
double-reflector antennas and even
unusual models such as a dish with a
magnifying glass reflector.
He doesn’t even want to attempt to
calculate how much all of this has cost
him: “It has to be several thousand
Euros”. Actually, he only bought just a
few components new for his incredible
antenna array. “I’m always scanning
through eBay; many people have no
idea what they’re selling and very often
I can get dishes and other components
very cheaply.” One of the highlights of
all this is the EGIS rotors that he has.
They are highly professional motors
and were very popular in the early days
of satellite reception since they were
able to move large 1.8-meter anten-
nas. György has five of these motors
all of which are in use: “The first two
I bought brand new but the others I
managed to acquire very inexpensively
through eBay.”
György first started playing around
with satellite reception in 1980: “Back
then the Olympics were in Moscow and
I was there when the TV headquarters
was built.” Hungary had delivered sev-
eral hundred TV monitors and György
was there when the first satellite dish-
k The World of Satellite DXers
DXers
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3. 1
2
3
1. Everything he needs to set up his
dishes can be found in this weather- 4
proof cabinet on the outside wall of
his home. This includes among other
things a receiver with a monitor as
well as an array of tools that he uses
to tighten mounting screws, loosen
mounting screws to reposition a dish
and/or adjust its elevation angle.
A flashlight is inside the cabinet;
György likes to do most of his work in
the evenings. He can even connect a
projection TV to his receiver: “This lets
me project the TV picture onto the wall
of my house making it very easy for
es were erected in Moscow with which my neighbor moved out, I bought his me to adjust dishes that are located a
little further away.” A projection TV for
CNN was received. György worked for apartment”, says György who then tore antenna alignment! Surely György is
many years in Moscow: “I worked for a down the dividing wall between the two unique when it comes to this! He can
even attach a laptop to the lid of this
local authority and handled electronic apartments. This all had a nice side ef- cabinet; the power cable and Internet
communications”, he says as he thinks fect: one less person to complain about connection are already hard-wired in
back to those days. all of his dishes. “With my other neigh- place - all he has to do is connect them
to his laptop. Then he can chat with his
bors upstairs who happen to come from hobby colleagues via the Internet while
Today György is retired and can Russia, I came to an agreement. They he’s adjusting an antenna.
therefore spend as much time as he get all of their Russian TV channels 2. György even mounted the monitor
wants with his hobby. “A few years ago from me and in return don’t complain on a pull out carrier so that he can
increase his viewing range to the
I was in the USA and bought a num- about all the antennas”, grins György. monitor.
ber of large used dishes.” He packed 3. The control box for the EGIS rotor
them in a container in order to get The vacant property next door will can be found hidden under a rain hood.
them home; they are now all mount- have a house built on it in the near fu- 4. What is this? Sure enough, György
even installed a small video camera so
ed on the wall of his home. There are ture. “I already inquired about buying that he can see from inside his house
six apartments in his building. “When the apartment upstairs so that I can how his dish is turning.
222 TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine — 02-03/2012 — www.TELE-satellite.com www.TELE-satellite.com — 02-03/2012 — TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine 223

4. 1
1. György even installed
antennas in his garden.
Here a friend is helping
him with a new mount on a
1.8-meter used fiber glass
antenna.
2. Everything comes
together here. With a
professional signal analyzer
and multiple receivers,
György can control all of his
dishes and watch all of the
2 TV channels.
224 TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine — 02-03/2012 — www.TELE-satellite.com

5. also install dishes on that roof.” He does
have one handicap that he has to deal
with: “This tree blocks my reception of
THAICOM at 78.5 east!” But that’s the
only obstacle that blocks his otherwise
unobstructed view of the sky. “I can
receive every satellite here. At the far
eastern end is the EXPRESS satellite at
96.5 east that I receive with a 2.20-me-
ter PFA and at the other end is a C-band
satellite at 55 west.” A highlight of his
antenna farm is the 1.8-meter antenna
pointed at ASTRA at 28.2 east. “With
this dish I can receive BBC and ITV.”
György is always building some-
thing. At the moment he is working on
a 1.5-meter antenna that he acquired
very cheaply from somewhere: “The
mount is missing so I’m building a new
one myself.”
György is very handy when it comes
to do-it-yourself projects and he has all
the necessary tools in his workshop.
But he does more than just deal with
the mechanical side of things: “I’m
working on programming an Internet
connection for an EGIS rotor.” His goal
is to be able to control this rotor re-
motely via the Internet. “The control
units for these rotors date back to the
previous century and are written in an-
cient code.”, explains György the chal-
lenges involved in adapting such old
1
technology to current times.
György lives with his dishes. He’s
2 always on the lookout for new dishes
that he can get for a very good price so
that he can work on putting them back
into service. He’s always testing, prob-
ing and building. Once and a while he’ll
actually sit down and watch TV, but for
a real satellite enthusiast, watching TV
is more of a side thing to do. The actual
excitement is being able to receive any-
thing and everything and taking advan-
tage of all the necessary technology.
His true hobby is how a satellite sig-
nal can be received with a dish and an
LNB. He wasn’t satisfied with just a few
dishes, rather, he continued to expand
and fine-tune his dish farm!
1. In György’s shack: He’s fabricating
a new LNB holder by himself for one of
his dishes. Many of the used antennas
that he buys have missing or have worn
out parts or have to be retrofitted to
match the size of today’s LNBs.
2. György has his large assortment
of mechanical components nicely
organized and includes a vast
collection of screws, nuts, washers, etc.
226 TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine — 02-03/2012 — www.TELE-satellite.com