1

I have a pretty decent and new satellite dish on my roof (Direct TV) but have no receiver in use. It was still technically connected to my cable lines and I found RF signals all over that section of the house.

There was no receiver connected (other than digital comcast boxes which doesn't work that way I believe). As soon as I disconnected the coax from the dish it stopped the RF signals.

My question is could a Dish on a house be used to send a signal as well as receive? If so what could it be used for?

curious
  • 19
  • 1
  • Hi curious, welcome to [security.se]. Please see the [FAQ] - this question is not really about security at all. – AviD Mar 07 '13 at 07:31
  • 1
    @AviD but what if they are using this to spy on him? – Lucas Kauffman Mar 07 '13 at 07:56
  • The dish was clearly sending "out" a signal. I was considering that it was being used to send information out of my house to someone. This would seem to be a "security" issue and something others should be aware of as many homes have old dishes on them that are still wired to the house. – curious Mar 16 '13 at 03:25

1 Answers1

2

In principle, yes- it is just an antenna and you can use the to send and receive.

In reality, you'd need to replace the receiver circuit with one that can also send - these are cheap so relatively easy to do. You would need to think about where you are sending data to, as those dishes are very directional.

So point to point link would be do-able, althiugh it might breach local transmission regs.

In reading this back, it isn't a security question so may get migrated or closed.

Rory Alsop
  • 61,507
  • 12
  • 118
  • 322
  • The dish was clearly sending "out" a signal. I was considering that it was being used to send information out of my house to someone. This would seem to be a "security" issue and something others should be aware of as many homes have old dishes on them that are still wired to the house – curious Mar 16 '13 at 03:26
  • I guess all I want to know further is could the signal be sending video, audio, what? Could I track where it was going? How would I detect who was gathering the data? – curious Mar 16 '13 at 03:32
  • curious - if your dish was actually sending a signal, which is very unlikely, it would be sent the direction the dish was pointing. Anything in that direction could receive it. – Rory Alsop Mar 16 '13 at 17:53