On 9 april I had a sked with W5LUA I made a QSO with W5LUA, he was very strong with me but I learned that my
understanding of doppler was not correct. I must do some study to better
understand the doppler. My misunderstanding was no problem because Al was very
strong and even when I was searching 30 khz below the right frequency I easily
found his signal. Listen to the signal from W5LUA during our QSO.
Its hard to imagine that this is the same station as the audio
I first heard on 9 march from Al.
Two major changes since that first time I heard Al:
- my dish was not optimal so I lost 2.3 dB,
- it was raining at the first time and sunny during our QSO
This is the spectran diagram from W5LUA
during our QSO
On 6 april I made my first QSO's After the redesign of the transmitter and a change to the doubler I was
ready to make a new test. I made a sked with LX1DB who had a very strong signal.
In total I made 4 QSO's today. OK1KIR also copied my signals but unfortunately
he was having problems with his system. We will try again later.
The 12 GHz brick and multiplier than
an attenuator and a 0.5 Watt amplifier
The TX system in the dish
The Hughes TWT via a short flex to the waveguide
switch
You can even see my dish on Google earth, the white spot in
the middle with the shadow on the ground
Spectran diagram of LX1DB
On 4 april I did my first test for a QSO
with OK1KIR After I build up my TX system into the dish I did my first test and found
that the TX was not working. After a short time I found the doubler from 12 to
24 GHz broken, I changed this for a new one and the TX worked for one
transmission and then again no output. Something was wrong in my setup so test
for today were stopped.
On 3 april I could measure moonnoise for
the first time after the focus allignment I started today to measure the moonnoise. After several measurements the
maximum value I measured was 2.4 dB with clouded sky. So my dish performance
looks OK.
I also completed the build-up for my transmitter and made everything ready for
my first test.
Waveguide switch with flex to transmitter and pre-amp mounted in the
antenna
transmittter is a brick followed by a doubler then a
attenuator and then a 0.5 W amplifier
TWT in test setup
On 29 March I made a big improvement to my
dish I tried today if my dish feed was correct in the focus because the measured
solar noise and moon noise was a little bit low compared to others. This was a
day with good weather but much wind. When I started I measured 12.9 dB solar
noise. I shifted the focus about 2 mm closer to the dish and I measured 13.5 dB.
I total I shifted the feed 4 times and at the end I measured 15.2 dB solar
noise. This is an improvement of 2.3 dB which is a lot.
I have been working the last week to get my
transmitter up and running and at this moment I have a setup of a 12 GHz brick
followed by a doubler, than a 0.5 Watt solid state amplifier and than the Hughes
TWT which I used several years ago with my first experiments to get power. With
the improved drive I now measure about 12 Watt output. I want to try next week
to be QRV for my first EME test.
This is the 24 GHz feed in front of my dish
On 9 march 2008 I copied my first EME signals on 24 GHz.
I copied signals from OK1KIR, W5LUA, VE4MA and LX1DB. Signals were very weak and very noisy due to spreading.
This might be caused by the rain which was falling.
During the test the weather was not good, we had about 1 to 3 mm per hour
rain all the day.
In the Spectran waterfall you can see the signal from OK1KIR. In the second
waterfall you can see me tuning over the signal from VE4MA.
The signal from W5LUA the strongest signal I heard during this weekend.
You can listen to the signal from W5LUA;
the signal is very weak. transmitting RO RO several times then after a short
break VE4MA de W5LUA