Physically large dimensional dish antennas in Cassegrain configuration have played an important role in satellite communications during the past several decades. Recently, however, emerging new technologies have begun to displace these elegant antennas in professional telecommunication service due to their lower operating costs. A beneficial aspect of this transitional situation is that it has created opportunities for amateur radio enthusiasts to use these soon-to-be-retired dish antenna systems for limited experimental testing. Adaptation of these professionally designed antennas to bands allocated for amateur radio service presents excellent educational opportunities in using antenna engineering skills and the use of modern electromagnetic simulation software provides a novel perspective for these antenna design and transformation tasks.
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