Re: [amsat-bb] AO-40 recieving

[Jonathan Naylor <jonathan.naylor@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Keith

I have used two of the set ups that you suggest:

>  1) downconverter to a hamtronics 2m- 28 Mhz converter to my Icom R75
>  receiver. (would this add too much extra noise into the signal ?)

Losing signal is always easy. You may have to use the attenuator in the 
radio, but this is very workable. I used this system in 1990 with AO-13 
mode-S, it worked fine.

>  2) downconverter to a icom PC-1000 computer controlled receiver

I have done this rceently, it always works great. With the Icom radio 
it is possible to look at the AO-40 passband on the spectrum monitor 
which can be entertaining, however using that and the radio on SSB 
receive is not possible.

>  3) downconverter to an Icom R8500 receiver (has vhf all mode-This is
> the most expensive,but I can steal it from my brother)

Why bother, the first two setups would be fine. The sensitivity of your 
downlink system is usually determined by the antenna gain and the noise 
figure of your downconverter, the quality or otherwise of your IF 
receiver is not that important.

One thing that I did here, and had a lot of fun with, was to split the 
downlink IF into two, and to use two receivers simultaneously. This 
allowed me to use the PCR1000 to monitor the downlink or capture the 
telemetry. My other downlink receiver (an IC-706 with microphone 
removed) was used for actually making QSOs.

>  I appreciate any help. Thank you all in advance, 73, Keith kg2ix

Pleasure

Jonathan  HB9DRD/G4KLX
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