[amsat-bb] Ao-40 site question

[DC <dc@xxxxxxxxx>]

I've been given the opportunity to put a AO-40 recieve station on the 
top of a tall building here on campus.  I'm in Houston, TX---it appears 
that AO-40 will always be south of me (judging by a predicting a few 
passes).  Will this trend hold long term?  Ie: can I get away with a 
site that can only see ~90-270 degrees azimuth? 

Overview of what I'm doing (suggestions welcome):
I'm putting an autotracking primestar dish w/ downconverter and wideband 
100-1000mhz discone on the roof of a 10 story building.  These will be 
connected to a PCR-1000 via a relay for antenna selection.  The reciever 
will be attached to a computer on the roof that will stream the audio 
over the campus network as well as accept/display tuning/positon 
commands via the network (eventually a web page).  My goal is to 
automate much of the tracking/tuning (not to hard with today's software) 
so that wheneven AO-40 comes above the horizon people will be able to 
listen live to an ?!amateur radio communications satellite!?!  If the 
university agrees, prehaps the streams will be available over the 
internet as well.  I'd like to be able to listen to/track all the sats 
but as I'm footing the bill for this thus far I can't afford all the 
antenna/rotator/switching hardware to make that happen yet.  I decided 
to go with the discone because it enables me to utilize the huge tuning 
range of the PCR-1000 to show off a bit of amateur radio beyond just the 
sats (they're only above the horizon for limited amount of time).  Just 
curious, will a 0db discone without a preamp be able to hear any of the 
LEOs?  That would be cool.

The complexity of this project is starting to run away from be a bit.  
One thing that's got me scared is lightning.  I'm putting antennas and 
quite a bit on my (expensive) equipment on a tall building where I won't 
be able to disconnect it during a storm.  There are several other tall 
buildings around as well but my antennas will still look like a good 
lightning rod.  I've been doing quite a bit of reading about lightning 
protection.  Thus far all its done is make an already expensive project 
even worse.  I've been checking out rf protectors by PolyPhaser but 
that's as I under stand it only one small part of my system.  It sounds 
like I need protection on my network lines, my coax, my rotator control 
lines, my power supply lines and my antenna switching relay lines.  In 
addition I thought it might be a good idea to have a coaxial relay that 
would enable me short the center conductor of my reciever's input to 
ground in threatening situations.  My is situation complicated by the 
fact that all this will be on top of a building where grounding might be 
more difficult howeverlightning rods already are installed (and they 
might be a decent ground).  Do any of you have any experience/advice here?

Thanks for hearing out my long winded post.  I'd love to hear some 
suggestions and comments...
-David Carr
KD5QGR

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