Improvements October 2012

A new tracking system with the F1EHN controller board and US Digital Encoders has been installed giving a very precise indication of where I am pointing, this is much better!

G4DDK 23cm lna has been tested on two analysers... measured 0.2dB and 0.3dB NF so in the right ball park!

LNA is now fitted to my newly constructed 1420MHz feed, performing much better than the original 1296MHz septum feed.......

Sun noise measurements now done with a Realtek RTL2832/E4000 dongle (AGC disabled) results below:

Solar Flux = 124
Sun Noise = 11.2dB
Moon Noise = just under 0.1dB, The first time i have been able to measure any moon noise!

VK3UM EME Calculator predicts 13.7dB Sun noise for SF124.





More Improvements November 2012

I have now built another feed in replacement to the square septum feed due to its low performance for some unknown reason!

This is the VE4MA/W2IMU round feed with polarising screws and choke ring...

Last measurement with some tweaking of feed position is:

Solar Flux = 111
Sun Noise = 11.5dB

Things are looking better! Reception of ON0EME seems much better now compared to the septum feed and Sun noise has made a big leap! the isolation is not as good on this feed so some slight adjustment maybe needed before i connect the TX side but hopefully i can get that done soon.

This weekend 24/45th Nov i heard many stations on 23cm via the moon on CW/JT65

on CW:

I5MPK
I1NDP
OK1CS
G5WQ - hard to copy with my poor cw skills..hi



JT65C:

OK1CS -13
SP3XBO -14
I1NDP -5
G4CCH -8
YO2BCT -18
EA1RJ -23
PY2BS -7
ZS5Y -22
G5WQ -19
W3HMS -18



Some audio clips:

I1NDP(CW)
I1NDP(SSB)
I5MPK(CW)
G4CCH(CW)
ON0EME Moon Beacon!
LX1DB(SSB)



New feed Nov 2012

New 23cm Feed