Double Crossed Dipoles for 137MHz Satellite Band

[Hanglands]

Hi all,

Been some time since I used these forums, but I have at last found some radio time.

This is the fourth incarnation of this thing that Ive made.... And hopefully the last. Enjoy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN2wyyBxUtA

Regards,
Steve.

[Black_Pirate]

that's great...
thx for putting the video up :-)

[5thElement]

Great video and nice finished antenna! homebrew at its best! i've always wanted to make one of these myself but never got around to it. I wish i had access to a little workshop like your own! would certainly make life simpler.

[Hanglands]

Theres no room for a car in my garage.... I make sure of that! I would love to have some machine tools, but pending that lottery win....

[crusty]

Well done Steven. Nice low azimuth decode, working well.

[mattltm]

Nice job Steve.

Are you uploading the images to the web?

[Hanglands]

Hiya,

Wotcha Crusty! Its been some time - I hope to get back on to the radio now as winter approaches.

Well, uploading... No Im not uploading images, I did used to do that, and Wxtoimg does make it all very easy to do. The reason Im not is mainly down to not having an RS232 port for PC control of the R2FX (modern PCs just don't seem to have them, and I have had zero success with USB/RS232 emulation).
Even if I did have the option of computer control, as I have the R2FX and not the R2ZX, my set up suffers from pager interference quite badly on at least one of the frequencies. I just use my set up for the odd image that might be interesting.... Like this one of that 'mega-storm' we had the other week (well, that's how the media hyped it) :



And this is the effect of pager noise :



I have also used my Kenwood R5000 with VHF board to receive satellite images, because the FM filters are just a bit too narrow although the image isn't quite as good in terms of cloud definition, it does mitigate the pagers to some degree.

Regards,

S.

[mattltm]

Very nice. That first one is a great image! What enhancement did you use? MSA?

I have a R2ZX which handles the pager mast about 200M away very well. I use a turnstile antenna that is currently in the loft so not great but it works for now until I can get outside onto the roof!

My latest pass from NOAA 18:

[Hanglands]

Nice work Matt! I wish the ZX had been available when I bought mine, I think it came out only a short while later.

I think that first image was MCIR enhancement.

The black n' white image I posted once the enhancement was applied...



A real shame about the pagers, because if you took away their interferences, that image is a very clean decode from North Africa to Greenland - and that's just what Wxtoimg wanted to record, I could have had it start recording earlier, and stop later. You can see Italy is getting a right beating in that one!

I just had to nip outside to get a photo of my crossed dipoles... the sunset was so fantastic!



Regards,
S.