Hi,

I'm new to satellite stuff and I had essentially the same requirements as you. I live in a dense urban environment so I have more QRM problems than most, limited roof space, and I try to keep a low profile and not get the neighbors too excited.

I wound up purchasing two eggbeaters from M2, one for 70cm and one for 2m: http://www.m2inc.com/products/vhf/2m/eb144.html

They work well, they are well-built, and are great for AO-51, ISS-digital, and GO-32. I also wound up getting an ARR masthead preamp for the 70cm eggbeater to compensate for my long feedline to the roof http://www.advancedreceiver.com/page10.html

To tell you the truth, the two eggbeaters are marginal for me working SO-50. It is just above the noise and I don't feel like I hear it well enough to transmit. If you want to listen for weak signals you might go straight to a directional setup with more gain. I feel a rotator in my not-too-distant future...

Eggbeaters aren't terribly portable. The copperweld loop is going to spring loose when you take it apart and poke someone in the eye, so I don't move them. For portable I got and Arrow-II handheld 70cm/2m yagi. It's great fun and seems to be popular. I used it with an old Icom-W32A HT on vacation and used it to work AO-51. It breaks down really small, fits in a little bag, and I can put it together in less than 5-minutes: http://www.arrowantennas.com/146-437.html

jeff AD6EO

Graeme Nelson wrote:

Hi all,

I'm wanting to make an antenna for "talking with the birds", mainly ISS and LEOs. Thank you to Don ZL1THO and John KB2HSH for the suggestions and encouragement they have already e-mailed me.

I have done some more thinking since then and come up with the following list of criteria for the first antenna I make for satellite work:

• easy to make
• lost cost
• omni-directional
• good performance, especially for satellite work, without moving it
• portable enough that I can pack it into the van when I go on holiday and it

won't take up much space (it needs to share the space with all the stuff for my wife and 3 children, as well as me). It would also be nice to be able to store it in the corner of my office at work if I so desire.

When I started looking in earnest last Friday, a ham colleague of mine did a Google search an came across a turnstile antenna that looked promising (http://www.wb8erj.com/turnstile_antenna.htm). That evening, I noticed the eggbeater on the web site of John KB2HSH (http://kb2hsh.blogspot.com/), which looks nice and easy to build. I then did some searching and came upon the Eggbeater II by Jerry K5OE (http://members.aol.com/k5oejerry/eggbeater2.htm), arguably a better fixed antenna for satellite use than the original eggbeater. A while later, I also found the EZ-Lindenblad by Tony AA2TX (http://www.arrl.org/qst/2007/08/monteiro.pdf).

I am currently leaning towards the EZ-Lindenblad (for 2m) and a parasitic Lindenblad (for 70cm ... when I get hold of the design; I intend to e-mail Tony about it if/when I go ahead with the EZ-Lindenblad).

How do these antennae compare performance-wise? Am I leaning in the right direction (EZ-Lindenblad), or should I be looking at something else? Your input would be much appreciated.

TTFN., Graeme ZL2GDN _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb