Re: [amsat-bb] New to Satellite and having problems

["Brian L. Chaffins" <kc8zbc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is perfect. I recently picked up a low cost Radio Shack rotor from 
ebay ands its just waiting for me to figure out what to do with it. I 
was wondering it anyone figured out a simple way to properly track a 
bird with a standard rotor. When I was young(er) we use to build 
telescope equitorial mounts from water pipe.

It looks like I have a new project.

Thanks again
Brian
KC8ZBC

Emily Clarke wrote:

> At 08:57 AM 8/4/2004 -0400, you wrote:
>
>> Thank you for your reply. That helps. I had not even thought about 
>> the power being transmitted by the ISS. After all they are running a 
>> D700 also. I' guess its time for another antenna. My wife is going to 
>> be so excited. *smurk*
>
>
> I may have a solution for you if you are willing to live with some 
> compromises.  I live in an apartment so everything is a compromise for 
> me...
>
> I use two small Yagi antennas made by Diamond - the A144S6 (9db gain) 
> and the A430S10 (13 db gain) which are $59 and $69 respectively at 
> HRO.  These are beam antennas, and with beams you need to rotate them 
> and control elevation.  However, I have mounted them at a fixed 
> elevation 27 degrees which puts the 1/2 power beam width below the 
> horizon. I traded this off against a null in the antenna above 75 
> degrees (which is statistically only about 4 percent of all satellite 
> passes.)  I'm sure I lose something on the ground, but I can still hit 
> 70cm stations 200 miles away and 2m stations 300 miles away, so I'm 
> probably not giving up much.
>
> I rotate by hand, but you could use one of the inexpensive radio shack 
> rotators since these antennas are very light (less than 1.5 pounds 
> each) and can be mounted in most places that you are mounting a 
> vertical.  They are small (less than 39") also, so you don't need a 
> lot of room to swing them around.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> 73,
>
> Emily
>
>
>
>> Oh, and I already read the artical you suggested last night.
>>
>> Thank you very much
>> Brian
>> KC8ZBC
>>
>> Emily Clarke wrote:
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> W0EEC - CM87tm
> AMSAT Area Coordinator - San Francisco Bay Area
> http://www.projectoscar.net    http://www.PlanetEmily.com 
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>
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----
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