I built a simple six element 70cm Yagi antenna today in hopes of hearing some of the mounbounce signals from the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico on Apr 16, 17, 18. Found a simple plan online and I used a piece of scrap wood for a boom and some 12 gauge copper wire that I had left over from another project for the elements. I trimmed down a piece of RG-58 with a BNC connector for the feedline and soldered it to the driven element. I then secured my Yaesu VX-7R to the boom with a tie strap. Connected the feedline to the radio then went outside to give it a test. I backed the power on the handheld down to low power which I think is half a watt (500mw) and pointed in the direction of the 442.700 repeater. I brought the repeater up with no problem and had the receive at full scale. I decided to test the directional characteristics of the antenna by turning it away from the repeater and sure enough just the slightest deviation and I lost the repeater. That's exactly what I was looking for, a very narrow and directional beam. We'll see how I make out over the next few days. Total time of construction and testing was about 30 minutes.
Moonbounce Info
1 comment:
And? How did it go?
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