It is easy to make a surplus Primestar dish into a highly directional antenna for the very popular IEEE 802.11 wireless networking. The resulting antenna has about 22 db of gain, and is fed with 50 ohm coaxial cable. Usually LMR400 or 9913 low loss cable is used if the source is more than a few feet from the antenna. The range using two of these antennas with a line of sight path is around 10 miles at full bandwidth. I must stress the line of sight part though.
Leaves really attenuate the signal.
The dish in use with Apple's Airport. A Primestar dish. A chassis mount N connector. It is also a good idea to put a drip hole at the lowest point of the can to insure that water doesn't build up inside. After having this up a for a few months, I think it would be nice to put a plastic lid on the open end of the can so that the inside doesn't rust.