Hi Bob.
There is a pre-amp kit available over here for about $70 which gives 0.26dB noise figure and 34dB gain at 1296MHz. Without resorting to cavity designs, this sounds pretty state of the art and is been used for EME.
_http://www.g4ddk.com/_ (http://www.g4ddk.com/) Apparently, Sam accepts paypal and has variants of the design for 2.4G and 3.4G
Thanks
David
In a message dated 09/08/2008 14:33:39 GMT Standard Time, w7lrd@comcast.net writes:
Hello Domenico & all Thanks for all the information. The measured F/D ratio works out to 0.375, therefore a patch would be appropriate. As mentioned earlier I would be content to just be able to receive EME (for now). For transmitting no doubt a different feed would be needed. Currently I am looking around for a preamp.