es'hail-2 dish feed

Well,

Very much inspired by the fun back here, I figured it would be great to try and make a better single feed for the dish for both bands.

This seemed to be just the ticket.

Not this needs to be plumbing, not electronics!

I paid a visit to fellow ham and insane constructor Ian, G4EVK; who has some amazing model making equipment and a good plumbers blowtorch!

Here's some photos of the build:

I'm waiting for a "rocket" LNB that I hope will fit on the end of the waveguide (read 22mm pipe) using a compression fitting, I have also used the trick from here to check the 2.4GHz return loss - after a little bit of bending it's now looking spot on.

Yesterday I very nearly mowed the lawns, today we woke up to this:

Let it snow.....

** UPDATE **

I have used the lens from a "rocket" LNB on the front of the feed and removed the feedhorn from an Octagon LNB (with a hacksaw) and connected it all together with a 22mm compression pipe connector and some waterproofing with some silicone. I have also modified the LNB to take an external 25MHz signal (as above):

I've used the same trick I used back here to measure the return loss on 2.4 GHz and its around 20dB; I have also lashed up the receiver on the 10GHz downlink and that is working just fine.

Now, how on earth can I weather proof this?

Miss Maggie and Miss Pepper Cat seem to be economising by using the same bed? Bonkers.

Local conditions....

Counting all the way to 13cm

Well,

You may have realised that I had something in mind when I made the Signal Generator up to 4.4GHz recently? Well, the idea is to use that to test a new transverter I have for 13cm:

This is another most excellent piece of kit from SG Labs. You may remember that the transverter used in this 23cm project came from the same place.

So, this transverter has a number of options for the LO, but with that set to be 1870 MHz, and my new Signal Generator set at 2301 MHz:

Lo, and indeed behold, on 431MHz we see a strong carrier:

Now, this transverter even came with a PCB antenna for 13cm:

So, the next thing is to try and test the TX side; not too sure how I am going to manage that yet, but I am sure I will find a way!

I have an ultra low noise amplifier from G4DDK ready to construct also for this band, plus a surplus telecoms PA block that should give some power. I also seem to have a 13cm Wimo antenna sat on my desk:

So, lots more to follow on this topic!

Local conditions.