At 04:00 PM 12/7/2006, Douglas Quagliana wrote:
A quick check around my radio shack confirms that none of my receivers will receive at or near 216.980 MHz.
What were other amateurs planning to use to receive the pings from RAFT on 216.98? Is there a bargain-basement no-frills way to kludge something together to receive the signals?
Douglas KA2UPW/5
---
Hi Douglas,
In the Sept/Oct 2005 AMSAT Journal, there is an article aout how to build a simple frequency converter for about $5 using a pair of 1N914 diodes and a TTL clock oscillator. The circuit was not designed for 217 MHz but it would be pretty simple to adapt it, just change coils L1, L2 and L3. Using a 35 MHz oscillator, 216.98 would be converted to 146.98 MHz.
This would not be nearly sensitive enough to hear the 4 mW beacon on RAFT1 but if you have a spare VHF TV preamp to use in front of it, this would probably be good enough especially if you use a TV antenna with a little gain and point it at the satellite.
73, Tony AA2TX