Recently in my possession came some very interesting equipment, probably not too similar to cell tower equipment, but looks quite like it, specifically like round-drum-like-aluminium-microwave antennas... I was told this equipment was professionally used on ships (saltwater, probably) as microwave/RF antennas or radars (that's a guess)... That's currently all I "know", and I would appreciate any and all comments, information or ideas regarding this stuff, be it identification, advice on how to disassemble or potential value, since I am so much out of my depth, I doubt even my terminology is correct, I apologize, but I will refer to much of the equipment as "stuff", "parts", etc. please excuse me and feel free to correct with right terminology or common-terms!
Also, please excuse the quality of my camera, I took the best pictures I could... past time to upgrade my phone
anyways, in pictures 1. & 2. you can basically see what the smallest ones looks like, I have quite a few (couple dozen or so) in total, "antenna dish" part of some are larger (1-2 m diameter) or much larger (3-4 m in diameter), but the "electronics part" (looks like small rectangular metal briefcase, even have a little cute handle) Pictures Nr. 3 & 4 are pretty much same on the outside, no matter the dish size, some briefcases are "double" feature, like two of them joined together, but I haven't yet opened any "double" ones, so no idea on the difference on the inside parts...
so almost nothing in this equipment is magnetic, It seems to be made out of very corrosion resistant materials (though, I thought that saw some signs of some white oxide residue even on aluminium, could be also sea-salt, didn't taste it
... ) there are rubber gaskets everywhere, and it's all bolted up pretty tight. Almost none of the nuts and bolts are attracted even to very strong neodymium (from HDD) magnets - some screws and fittings are attracted to it very faintly, so that would be some type of stainless steel?
The "leg" Part of antenna is totally non magnetic, but very heavy for aluminium, could it be some kind of ZA (zinc-aluminium) alloy?
The dish "part" seems pretty straight-forward, it is a painted-white-on-outside aluminium dish, seems like nothing special to it, I plan to bring it to a scrapyard as extruded aluminum... There is a plastic cover on the dish (radome?), again seems nothing special to it, removed it and put it in my scrap computer plastic (ABS) pile... Interestingly, there was some kind of sponge/synthetic-fur/fiber-like material lined on the inside of few of the dishes, that I didn't take pictures off, my guess - it's there to prevent any water droplets forming due to moisture?
More interestingly there is some kind of "head" or "horn" in the middle - see it piled on some other stuff I threw in one of the dishes in the picture Nr. 5.... The metallic part (again - non magnetic) looks like it could even be silver plated? Is it common in antenna like this? Also the "head" part is just some type of hard plastic/glass like material - no idea what to do with it - just toss it?
Also I found very interesting that there are almost no wires there, only thing logically connecting the "dish"&"head" parts to the "electronic briefcase" is a tiny rectangular hole - as seen in the middle of picture number 3.. Seems that all of the information travels through that little channel (I actually saw it in some more places further down the rabbit hole), I have no idea how these type of electronics works, would love some insight
I unscrewed neatly much of what I could, but got bored of endless tiny little screws with varying torx and philips heads and took
nickvc said:
There is one way to find out, break one of them down and test the internal parts that look promising 8)
advice quite literally - did the breaking part with hammer and an axe (as a chisel), and it went pretty smoothly, up to the point that I needed a bigger hammmer to continue
On the insides of the "briefcase" - there are couple of nice HF boards - top left of the picture Nr. 6, cute enough, but I have learned not to get too excited with ENIG plating, so nothing much to ask about those, only that they have very little "useless" weight like transformer coils or aluminium capacitors - all are tantalum SMD capacitors, some IC's, some gold-plated connector pins. so they would be classed something like "HF boards 2" on this little site: http://www.comet-trade.de/preise_e.htm , with price around 9-10 eur/kg? couldn't really find an analogue for them on e-bay, boardsort site or my local sites, what would an adequate price be?...
On the same picture - there can bee seen the aluminium(?) "case" or "shielding" for the board - the pattern of "walls" in the aluminium actually matches and touches the gold plated segments on the board - they fit together... Sadly from the color this aluminium doesn't looks to be Ag plated... could it still be? Is there any value to be had there or should I just toss it in the extruded scrap aluminium pile?
Also, same picture Nr. 6, about middle, little to the left there can be seen some type of unit or module... two of them were embedded in the part labeled "Arrizon Diplexer" (Pics Nr. 7 & Nr. 8 ), I broke them off and tore them open - that's what they look like in the middle - Pic. Nr. 9 - there are some kind of little gold plated plates, that actually looks quite promising, the plating seems dull and hopefully thicker than ENIG?
Finally, the "Arrizon Diplexer" baffled me the most - look at the patterned screws on this guy - Pic Nr. 10 - what is that? Some of the little screws in the reddish sections even looks to be silver plated (very white), could there be such a thing? Also note familiar rectangular hole in the middle of the part (under yellow plastic sticker) - the area was also covered in some translucent wet/greasy substance, in some way reminiscent of USG gel - very peculiar... I did immediately switch to gloves though
- still, there was no way I'd unscrew all that madness so I turned to my trusty brute force method, that is where I ran in to my "bigger hammer" problem I referenced earlier - Pics Nr 11 & 12.... By color the inside of it does seem to be silver plated - will have to break it completely open to confirm....
So anyways - my main question would be: what the hell is that what I have there?
also, It only occurred to me after I stumbled on gel-like translucent grease mentioned earlier that I could harm myself chemically by dismantling this stuff the way I do - at first I figured I'm somewhat safe from dangers like BeO, since this stuff seems fairly recent-made, but still - question for the pros - what hazards to look out for? I mean besides apparent risks of catching some shrapnel in an eye
?
Also pictures with some more labels from this antenna that could help identify what exactly I have: Nr. 13, 14 & 15
Also also - where to look for values, I can find boards simple enough, but what about potential silver plating? And what to do with said boards and gold plated items?
I hope it is not against the rules or frowned upon, but I really, really would like Jon to comment on this, so I'ma do a little trick and fabricate a little quote here for my friend so he gets notified and notices this little thread:
anachronism said:
But, honestly,
any help, any information from any member will be deeply appreciated... Can anyone help me?
Also Also Also, it seems there is a limit to how much pictures can be added so I'll add a few more posts with pictures referenced here, sorry they are not in order