At 04:43 AM 10/22/2008, Gordon J. C. Pearce MM3YEQ wrote:
At the moment I've been receiving the SSTV and voice signals from the ISS with a homebrew omni on a pole in my back garden. I don't really have the room to put up a tower, and since the house is rented I suspect the landlord would have some pithy words to say about digging up a chunk of the garden and pouring a plinth.
How well would an aerial with a cardioid pattern such as an HB9CV work? Since the ISS is never much above 30 degrees this far north (IO75) I doubt I'd need to worry about elevation.
How well would just adding a 144MHz preamp to the omni work?
How have other people solved this, without recourse to big rotators and things?
Gordon
Hi Gordon,
I have used a Lindenblad mounted on a pole just 2 meters high along with an ARR Mast-mount preamp and this works darn well.
For receiving the ISS and linear mode B satellites, you don't really need a preamp but it will make a difference receiving the packet satellites on 145.825 MHz.
It is also a good TX antenna for mode J satellites.
The Lindenblad (from QST) is here: http://www.arrl.org/qst/2007/08/monteiro.pdf
The ARR Preamp is here: http://www.advancedreceiver.com/page10.html
Best of luck and 73, Tony AA2TX