Dish at Radio Ranch:
Bob Condon and Hector, the guys that really made this happen, are in this picture.
Bob found the dish, and he and Hector Robles put days of work into getting the dish road ready and getting the dish to turn. They also stuck with it when the dish’s azimuth chain broke and had to be repaired.
Thanks also to John Forinash for helping us understand how AC electric motors work.
The30 year old dish is in working condition and moves on the azimuth and elevation axis at about 0.25 degrees per second. There is also a polarization rotation motor that has not been tested.
Azimuth coverage is about180 degrees and elevation is from 15 to 90 degrees. This is sufficient to cover satellites in the geosynchronous belt and also follow the moon for moon-bounce communications.
The dish was originally designed for Ku band satellite communications. By replacing the prime focus feed it should operate at any desired amateur frequency from UHF (440 MHz) through X-band (10 GHz).
At 10GHz the 3 dB beam width will be 0.45degrees which is about the size of the moon as seem from earth. Antenna gain at 10 GHz should be in excess of 50 dB !!!
Things to do:
1. Re-engineer the antenna control box and limit switches (which are currently bypassed).
2. Test and possibly replace the azimuth and elevation angle-measuring shaft encoders.
3. Prepare a pad and move the antenna to it’s final location.
4. Interface the controller to a purchased computer program that points the antenna at celestial objects. Test the pointing system.
5. Figure out what sounds like fun, and engineer a total system for moon bounce, satellite, or tropospheric scatter communication.
6 Design and build feeds, acquire and assemble radio equipment. Measure antenna pattern and system thermal noise level, and effective radiated power.