I agree with JoAnne:
Put up a small yagi fixed in elevation at 15-30 degrees with a cheap antenna rotator for azimuth (Alliance HD73 or similar) and you will be in business without the $700 cost of az-el. Even mounting an Arrow this way is good to have hands-free operation.
I built a pair of Lindenblad antennas, which was an interesting project, and they worked OK. But I missed having the gain of a yagi system for stronger reception of the sats (my old system was rated for AO-40). I have taken down my Lindenblads.
I've acquired a replacement controller for my Yaesu B5400 and will re-install part of (26-elements) of my M2 436CP42 and have a 7-element M2 2m yagi on a short tower with the B5400. Probably will not get to this until spring. You can see what I have done here: http://www.kl7uw.com/sat.htm
73, Ed - KL7UW
From: "JoAnne Maenpaa" [email protected] To: "'AMSAT bbs'" [email protected] Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] Az-El Rotors Message-ID: 000901d15778$4c73e210$e55ba630$@net Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Hi Fred,
... starting with a small single antenna with both 2m and 70cm on it (i.e. Arrow or other) ...
I've found that an azimuth-only rotor with a fixed elevation of 20? or so works well enough for most of what I do with LEO satellites. I got my rotor from ebay for $20. It is a primitive setup - manual tracking. Much of the time I prefer using an Arrow antenna.
If you are looking for rotor projects there have been two designs published over the past year or so in the AMSAT Journal. Here is some information you can use to find out more about these:
The AMSAT store has the printed circuit board for WA8SME's WRAPS inexpensive, portable az-el rotor system. See http://store.amsat.org and look for the "WRAPS Tracker Circuit Board". There is also a link to the article by Mark, WA8SME.
Bob, KI4SBL, wrote an article about his homebrew az-el rotor system, "CNCTRK ? A LinuxCNC Based Satellite Tracking System", for the AMSAT Journal. Bob has details of this project and the parts he sells along with a PDF of the article posted on his web site: http://ki4sbl.dodropin.org/CNCTRK/
-- 73 de JoAnne K9JKM [email protected]
73, Ed - KL7UW http://www.kl7uw.com "Kits made by KL7UW" Dubus Mag business: [email protected]