Ham Radio Club FTA Converts…

[mikelib]

This past Tuesday night I gave my local Ham Radio Club a Talk and a Demo on FTA satellites and satellite signal reception.

Part of the talk was an exercise in LOS, locating TS satellite (H2 for this location) and what is azimuth, elevation and skew. I made the group of twenty five stand and pretend that it was twelve noon and they were facing the sun, I told them to raise there arm at a 44 degree angle and point at the sun and move there arm about a half degree east. I then passed out a dish for each person and made them hold the dish straight up and make arching motions east and west of their TS sat.

The exercise worked fine except everyone complained of no signal strength and signal quality. I don’t know why!

 

[Dhave_Malloc]

The exercise worked fine except everyone complained of no signal strength and signal quality. I don’t know why!


I can see why! Your dish shown has a shiny surface. Next time use a matte finish type dish!

 

[Skyscanner]

What, no coax?

 

[melgarga]

Naaa.....
His XYL wouldnt let him take the good china out to his clubhouse to play with so he had to stop at Wally World and get a bag of Chinette dishes to play with. Might have worked better if he'd remembered to get the aluminum foil to line the styrofoam with.
While you had everybody up and participating did you move on to a few rounds of "Simon Says"?

 

[dashaund]

That's pretty cool! I'm a ham radio convert myself. I've always been fascinated with RF and receiving signals, which is why I enjoy FTA so much. I didn't have the luxury of being introduced to the hobby by anyone though, I just was doing some research on the internet and picked up on it...rest is history.

 

[Anole]

I'm also a ham. Have been for... quite some time ...
Many years back, I was playing with wi-fi, and thinking about building a [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helical_antenna"]Helical antenna - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Helical_antenna.jpg" class="image"><img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/Helical_antenna.jpg/180px-Helical_antenna.jpg"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/2/25/Helical_antenna.jpg/180px-Helical_antenna.jpg[/ame] to get 2 mile reception.
Then it dawned on me that while it'd be fun, it would serve no useful purpose. -
That day, I put down my curved copper tubing, and picked up a dish.

 

[Bill_KY]

Ham radio op here too.

 

[Pismire]

Extra class here as well as my wife and daughter. Been scanning the FTA sky's since the 80's....ham since 94.

 

[goaliebob99]

K9SAT here,

 

[melgarga]

K9SAT here,

Cute! Bird-Dog....or actually Dog-Bird, but who's counting.
AOR 33+ yrs. Last 22+ Extra Class. Lost my original WB call due to changes in priorities/inactivity. Kept my re-issued KA call, NO VANITY. Screws with the intended order.

 

[Phottoman]

dit-dit-dit-dit dit-dit

 

[B.J.]

This past Tuesday night I gave my local Ham Radio Club a Talk and a Demo on FTA satellites and satellite signal reception.

Part of the talk was an exercise in LOS, locating TS satellite (H2 for this location) and what is azimuth, elevation and skew. I made the group of twenty five stand and pretend that it was twelve noon and they were facing the sun, I told them to raise there arm at a 44 degree angle and point at the sun and move there arm about a half degree east. I then passed out a dish for each person and made them hold the dish straight up and make arching motions east and west of their TS sat.

The exercise worked fine except everyone complained of no signal strength and signal quality. I don’t know why!

Once, after a neighbor told me that he couldn't get DTV local channels because the installer said he couldn't see the sats, I took a DTV dish and portable TV and a DVB receiver to his house, and got up on a 6' ladder on his deck, and hand held the DTV dish while scanning across the sky for satellites. Managed to hit 2 Nimiqs, and 110, but he needed to see 119, so unfortunately, the installers were right. In the long run, he was glad, because he didn't want a dish on a 6' pole attached to his deck. Eventually he was able to get the HD locals on one of the Ka sats near 101.
But the experiment showed how easy it is to find those DBS sats. I mean, if I can aim and lock transponders hand holding the dish......

I'm also a ham. Have been for... quite some time ...
Many years back, I was playing with wi-fi, and thinking about building a helical antenna to get 2 mile reception.
Then it dawned on me that while it'd be fun, it would serve no useful purpose. -
That day, I put down my curved copper tubing, and picked up a dish.

I wish I could find a picture of a 430 MHz helical antenna I once built. I had found this huge piece of copper or brass that I made the back reflector out of. It was about 30" diameter I think. Then, as you mention, out of the center was a helix made out of 1/4" refrigeration tubing. I can't remember the exact dimensions, but the coil was about 3' long or more, and several inches in diameter, all spaced out of a wooden dowel I had sticking out the center of the back reflector. I made the thing carefully following the measurements in the ARRL antenna book. The thing was beautiful, and the local hams loved it. Unfortunately, the darn thing didn't work worth a darn. I got better reception out of the rubber duck thing on my HT. It actually worked better when aimed 90 deg away from the direction of the station I was trying to talk to. I ended up tearing the thing apart, and decided that helical antennas were just too difficult to get the dimensions right. Sure looked neat though.

 

[Christopherve7alb]

Also a ham, VE7ALB. My FTA dishes exist around my Ham radio antennas and my ham station is getting rather crowded since my dive into FTA.

 

[goaliebob99]

Cute! Bird-Dog....or actually Dog-Bird, but who's counting.
AOR 33+ yrs. Last 22+ Extra Class. Lost my original WB call due to changes in priorities/inactivity. Kept my re-issued KA call, NO VANITY. Screws with the intended order.

K9 acutally represents the area im in. I live in Kankakee county, and the county uses k9 as the county identifyer, I think its because were the 9th county in the state of illinois that begins with a K. but im not sure on that. We all know what the sat part stands for

 

[N5XZS]

I been a ham OPS, since 91 and love to DX on 6-meter band and TV DXing fun on OTA and FTA KU bands.:

Been thinking getting new baby base transceiver Kenwood TS-2000.....

 

[dashaund]

I been a ham OPS, since 91 and love to DX on 6-meter band and TV DXing fun on OTA and FTA KU bands.:

Been thinking getting new baby base transceiver Kenwood TS-2000.....

The TS-2000 is niiiice. I had one for a while, finances forced me to sell it :-(. I hope to get another one someday soon. I think ham radio and FTA both pull out similarities in most of us. Just that "chase" desire and to strive to get more and more out of our equipment and "upgrade" to hopefully new and better equipment to keep going. KI4ABS, Extra class since November 2008.

 

[mikelib]

Thanks Guys

It's good to see all of you Ham Radio guys checking-in. I have my ham radio license since June 1958, that’s 51 years now. I operate 2 meters and I am getting ready to set up a low band station this coming winter.

So far I am having a great time with FTA. There was a good interest in FTA at the meeting and some of the guys are looking into getting a FTA set up. I am also offering the talk and Demo to other ham radio clubs. I have dishes left over from the last talk and demo, just need to improve the SQ.

Maybe this winter we can have FTA net on 20 or 15 to talk about FTA
73s’
Mike Lib

 

[TRG]

I been a ham OPS, since 91 and love to DX on 6-meter band and TV DXing fun on OTA and FTA KU bands.:

Been thinking getting new baby base transceiver Kenwood TS-2000.....

What kind of TV DX do you get in Albuquerque? I'm in the NE heights. I assume there isn't much coming in from the east because of the mountain.

 

[N5XZS]

TRG,

On VHF low band channel 2 to 6, I sometime Get Mexican and Canadian stations skipping in from time to time.

The farthest catch was Brazil via TEP, back in the late 70's before KSAF-TV on channel 2 came on the air in the early 80's

All on analog NTSC, and yet so far I have yet to get any digital signals to lock in.:

So far TV skip seasons, for this year is pretty poor so far....

Wait till mid December to mid Janurary for E-skip to open up.

 

[mikelib]

Are any of you Ham guys on ECHOLINK or Skype? I can down load it and see if we can make a sked, I would enjoy talking to someone about FTA, everyone who asks what am I doing when I am aligning my dish thinks I am an alien, they want to know if I can reach Mars.