Who’s following me on Twitter probably knows some details. I believe this is my most expected article. Last year I came up with the idea to build a wideband SDR. It’s fun to monitor a wider spectrum and some signals. Sure, USRP is cool but too expensive for amateur usage. I had a few HackRF boards, so I ordered more…
Category: Radioastronomy
Small satellite dish with rotator
Receiving and analyzing radio signals is fun. Receiving satellite signal is even better. A few years ago, I had a nice 3m satellite dish with a hydrogen line receiver. Now I have only a small balcony with limited antennas placement ability. I decided to build a custom 40 cm dish with a servo-based rotator. Sure, it’s impossible to receive weak…
Satellite LNB controller with GUI interface
Satellite LNB are quite cheap and easy to get devices. There are different models for different bands (C, Ku, and Ka) with different characteristics like SNR, noise figure, etc. Typically those devices are used with TV Set-top boxes. More interesting is that LNB can be easily connected to an SDR receiver. LNB is a simple frequency down-converter with an output…
Dish antenna for the amateur radioastronomy
In the previous article, I describe a low noise amplifier for the 21cm band. Today I want to show you a construction of the dish antenna where this amplifier was used.
Low noise and low cost amplifier for radio astronomy, 21 cm band
21 cm band, also known as the Hydrogen line, is one of the important bands in radio astronomy. Please read this Wikipedia article if you not familiar with the Hydrogen line. Nowadays, even radio amateurs can observe this signal from outer space, thanks to modern hardware. One of the most important parts of any receiver is the antenna and input…