Wow! Fun project. Very exciting. Any chance there are also antique antennas at the California ground station at Goldstone. Nasa had three primary ground stations for Apollo: Spain, Australia, and California. https://www.gdscc.nasa.gov/
73 Robert MacHale. KE6BLR Ham Radio License. http://spaceCommunicator.club/aprs%C2%A0 . Supporting Boy Scout Merit Badges in Radio, Robotics, and Space Exploration
On Wednesday, August 14, 2019, 2:54:16 PM PDT, Daniel Cussen via AMSAT-BB amsat-bb@amsat.org wrote:
I would recommend trying to find out if the motors are AC or DC or some weird voltage or stepper or servo type. If you can get the motors to move, position feedback could be added with a simple potentiometer from a belt, or a fancy encoder. It may be possible to use the old position feedback, but it may be faster and easier to mount something on the outside that gives the same result.
In terms of frequency ranges, rate of tracking, dish beam width, these will determine what it could be used for, and assuming you use the old motors and the reflector on the dish is designed for vhf?, then this would limit top frequency and maximum tracking ability aligned with beam width. Say vhf, UHF lower microwave, and presumably the dish could track low earth orbit or moon bounce.
Looking at the photos it looks like the right middle connector is an n type coax connector for the feed. I assume the military type connectors are for position feedback from some sort of rotary or absolute encoder. Often there is an encoder mounted near or on the motor, which is AC or DC simple motor.
If the manual movement cranks work you could run belts to them and mount new motors on the outside. Speed might be limited, but acceptable.
I would recommend adding hardware limit switches no matter what you do to ensure the dish can never rotate too far and damage itself. It may have limit switches inside, but they may need replacing and external switches would be easier to service.
It would be great if this could track low earth orbit and receive school contacts from the iss and cubesats on vhf and UHF.
I would like to see it receive 2395MHz Hamtv from the ISS, which is relatively strong and easy to receive.
On Wed, 14 Aug 2019 22:11 Michelle Thompson via AMSAT-BB <amsat-bb@amsat.org wrote:
A group of GNU Radio community members has permission to evaluate a dish installation in Huntsville, AL near the Space Center. If you've ever been to the Space Center (where the Saturn V is suspended from the ceiling) then this dish is right outside the main entrance. Anyone attending Symposium last year should recognize it!
Here's a set of photos:
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1d_Oi3hrIi49JxmaoNuUA-pvUXOs7vSz1
We're looking for technical information, identification of what you recognize in the photos, recommended next steps, and what to watch out for, prioritize, or avoid. We already know we want to take the paint off all the ID plates and see what's under there.
We want to see if we can get this working for *amateur radio operators to access over the internet*, ideally with a GNU Radio flowgraph to control it from an SDR. Our priority is to make this work for amateur satellite.
This type of setup is similar to what GNU Radio Foundation is working on with the Allen Telescope Array. We have the go-ahead from the Space Center curator to do this study and make recommendations.
I have fully restored several basket-case British sports cars and then successfully raced them. My other team members have restored things even more challenging. We are not dumb, naive, or easily deterred. We know this may turn out to be something that requires way more work than we can do in any time frame we can manage. Documenting that is still of great value, and that is why we are asking for your help. Right now, no one knows much of anything about it. This sort of installation, if available for amateur radio, is well worth the effort.
Some of the people involved have been driving past this installation for 20 years and want to see it back in service at whatever level we can achieve. It will be discussed at GNU Radio Conference, and everyone at the conference will have the opportunity to see it up close and in person, since it's literally across the parking lot from the venue.
Want to attend or find out more about GRCon? https://www.gnuradio.org/grcon/grcon19/
If you know of someone off-list that might know details that will help, then please pass this along!
-Michelle W5NYV + Corps of Operation Flashlight _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: https://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
_______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: https://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb