Amatuer radio astronomy

Are any of you (alone or as part of a club) doing any radio-astronomy?


--
Clear Skies,

Paul Murphy


(remove gemini to email me)

Paul Murphy wrote:
Are any of you (alone or as part of a club) doing any radio-astronomy?


Yes, I have explored Radio Astronomy from time to time and find it a
good answer to clouds and daylight. It is getting harder to do because
of interference but can be rewarding from a technical aspect (weak
signals and all that) as well as an interesting venture into Astronomy.

SETI is a good example of deep fishing..no real chance of results in a
lifetime but if you do it's a really big fish!

Solar monitoring is more possible than ever with sat dishes and cheap
LNB technology.

Radio detection of meteor pings is easy and with computer/sound card
audio spectrum analysis can provide useful data.

Amateur radio moon bounce (EME) is also fun to play with as some have
lowered there power to a few watts and received an echo all be it with a
large dish.

Large antennas can become quite a boy toy as most armature astronomers
talk about inches and we dish people like many meters.

With modern low noise receivers and large satellite dishes one could
find supernova within the galactic plane where the optical absorption is
high enough to evade optical detection.


The interaction of solar born events and our way upper atmosphere
(waygonosphere) is a source of ELF in the 1000's of Hz (audio) and can
be received with modest equipment.

Using HF receivers the noise storms from jupiter are easy to receive and
we are nearing the solar minimum where results are best.

OK then, I hope you live in a place with land, few power lines and like
antennas as they are the optics we radio heads use.

Best of luck

Dan

Hi Dan----

Is there a site where I might find info on Solar Radio Astronomy? Have lots
of land, no power lines.

Doink


"Dan Mckenna" wrote in message
news7lsf.1244$ZA5.557@fed1read05...
Paul Murphy wrote:
Are any of you (alone or as part of a club) doing any radio-astronomy?


Yes, I have explored Radio Astronomy from time to time and find it a good
answer to clouds and daylight. It is getting harder to do because of
interference but can be rewarding from a technical aspect (weak signals
and all that) as well as an interesting venture into Astronomy.

SETI is a good example of deep fishing..no real chance of results in a
lifetime but if you do it's a really big fish!

Solar monitoring is more possible than ever with sat dishes and cheap LNB
technology.

Radio detection of meteor pings is easy and with computer/sound card audio
spectrum analysis can provide useful data.

Amateur radio moon bounce (EME) is also fun to play with as some have
lowered there power to a few watts and received an echo all be it with a
large dish.

Large antennas can become quite a boy toy as most armature astronomers
talk about inches and we dish people like many meters.

With modern low noise receivers and large satellite dishes one could find
supernova within the galactic plane where the optical absorption is high
enough to evade optical detection.


The interaction of solar born events and our way upper atmosphere
(waygonosphere) is a source of ELF in the 1000's of Hz (audio) and can be
received with modest equipment.

Using HF receivers the noise storms from jupiter are easy to receive and
we are nearing the solar minimum where results are best.

OK then, I hope you live in a place with land, few power lines and like
antennas as they are the optics we radio heads use.

Best of luck

Dan

Doink wrote:
Hi Dan----

Is there a site where I might find info on Solar Radio Astronomy? Have lots
of land, no power lines.

Doink

Doink,

You can find lots of examples on the web under solar radio astronomy etc.

One simple rig uses a small sat dish with a standard Ku LNB connected to
a cheap sat finder which is a broad band rf detector. The sat finder is
modified to provide an output for a data logger. Does not require much
space at all.

A Solar Observatory out in Ft. Davis Texas had a (this was 30 years
ago) large tower with a High frequency log periodic antenna
10 to 40 Mhz ?? and a 10 meter dish with a log feed that went to 600 Mhz
at the time. It used receivers that were tuned by a motor and a film
strip recorder. Now days you could use a TV tuner as there are scanning
receivers described on the Web as spectrum analyzers, should be easy to
find.

Its good to have a safe zone around antennas in case they fall in the
wind. I found out the hard way coming home from high school only to find
the fire dept had chopped up my antenna.

If you have land, have a look at http://fringes.org
it is the home of Fringe Dwellers and they build high frequency
interferometers. At 20 to 30 Mhz the sky is very hot and standard hf
receivers are used with dipoles. one can observer the sun, Jupiter,
Galatic, and more.

You know are seeing the object by the fringe pattern as the HF band
has lots of local (earth based) noise sources.

If you dig a little you will find all sorts of info

d.

Doink wrote:

Hi Dan----

Is there a site where I might find info on Solar Radio Astronomy? Have
lots of land, no power lines.

Doink
..
..
..

SARA, Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers, might be worth a look.
http://www.qsl.net/SARA/projects/index.html
http://www.qsl.net/SARA/projects/solar.htm
http://www.draco.scsu.edu/dual.html

Amateur Seti http://www.bambi.net/

Thanks Dan. Our group has an electrical engineer in it---might be a great
club project. Thank you.

Chris
"Dan Mckenna" wrote in message
news:q%nsf.1298$ZA5.861@fed1read05...
Doink wrote:
Hi Dan----

Is there a site where I might find info on Solar Radio Astronomy? Have
lots of land, no power lines.

Doink
Doink,

You can find lots of examples on the web under solar radio astronomy etc.

One simple rig uses a small sat dish with a standard Ku LNB connected to a
cheap sat finder which is a broad band rf detector. The sat finder is
modified to provide an output for a data logger. Does not require much
space at all.

A Solar Observatory out in Ft. Davis Texas had a (this was 30 years ago)
large tower with a High frequency log periodic antenna
10 to 40 Mhz ?? and a 10 meter dish with a log feed that went to 600 Mhz
at the time. It used receivers that were tuned by a motor and a film strip
recorder. Now days you could use a TV tuner as there are scanning
receivers described on the Web as spectrum analyzers, should be easy to
find.

Its good to have a safe zone around antennas in case they fall in the
wind. I found out the hard way coming home from high school only to find
the fire dept had chopped up my antenna.

If you have land, have a look at http://fringes.org
it is the home of Fringe Dwellers and they build high frequency
interferometers. At 20 to 30 Mhz the sky is very hot and standard hf
receivers are used with dipoles. one can observer the sun, Jupiter,
Galatic, and more.

You know are seeing the object by the fringe pattern as the HF band has
lots of local (earth based) noise sources.

If you dig a little you will find all sorts of info

d.

Check out http://radiosky.com

They got lots of good stuff for the amature radio astronomer. I have the
book, Radio Astronomy Projects 2nd Edition by William Lonc. Unfortunatly it
is no longer in print.

Scott
"Doink" wrote in message
...
Hi Dan----

Is there a site where I might find info on Solar Radio Astronomy? Have
lots of land, no power lines.

Doink


"Dan Mckenna" wrote in message
news7lsf.1244$ZA5.557@fed1read05...
Paul Murphy wrote:
Are any of you (alone or as part of a club) doing any radio-astronomy?


Yes, I have explored Radio Astronomy from time to time and find it a good
answer to clouds and daylight. It is getting harder to do because of
interference but can be rewarding from a technical aspect (weak signals
and all that) as well as an interesting venture into Astronomy.

SETI is a good example of deep fishing..no real chance of results in a
lifetime but if you do it's a really big fish!

Solar monitoring is more possible than ever with sat dishes and cheap LNB
technology.

Radio detection of meteor pings is easy and with computer/sound card
audio spectrum analysis can provide useful data.

Amateur radio moon bounce (EME) is also fun to play with as some have
lowered there power to a few watts and received an echo all be it with a
large dish.

Large antennas can become quite a boy toy as most armature astronomers
talk about inches and we dish people like many meters.

With modern low noise receivers and large satellite dishes one could find
supernova within the galactic plane where the optical absorption is high
enough to evade optical detection.


The interaction of solar born events and our way upper atmosphere
(waygonosphere) is a source of ELF in the 1000's of Hz (audio) and can be
received with modest equipment.

Using HF receivers the noise storms from jupiter are easy to receive and
we are nearing the solar minimum where results are best.

OK then, I hope you live in a place with land, few power lines and like
antennas as they are the optics we radio heads use.

Best of luck

Dan

I think the old "Amateur Scientist" section of Scientific American
Magazine had a couple of Radio Astronomy sections over the years (back
in the 1950s-60s).

rcyoung wrote:

I think the old "Amateur Scientist" section of Scientific American
Magazine had a couple of Radio Astronomy sections over the years (back
in the 1950s-60s).

Although they did, and the antennae designs have not changed that much
all the valve based electronics is completely obsolete. Same is also
true of the UK magazine Practical Electronics in the late 60's.

SARA is as good a place as any to start from
http://www.bambi.net/sara/sites_list.html

Regards,
Martin Brown

Any suggestions for a good replacement for the good old strip recorder?

What is available for data loggers these days?

TMT