Back to SATs! (2)

Well, there were some problems with my antenna setup of last week... one of the problems is that I have replaced the sepparate rotor controls (Yaesu G-400RC and Kenpro KR-500) for a all-in-one Yaesu G-5600B (note that I have replaced only the control box, which I bought used some years ago). I have done this in order to control the rotors from the PC easily, as the G-5600B control includes internal relays and has buffered positioning signals.

But one problem is that it is a South referenced control... and my antennas were North referenced. This was not hard to fix :-)

Then a worse problem arised, as there was some miscalculation on the 2m elevation antenna and one director collided with the 6m boom from about 50º elevation... not a good thing!

In order to fix the bent element, I needed to access to the 2m Yagi. But it was too far to reach. So I modified the antenna position by displacing the elevation boom. Current positioning is shown on next picture, with the elevation antennas pointing to sky:

I have also reshuffled the rigs on my main radio station position, so now I have a rig devoted to SATs (Yaesu FT-847), another for Earth work :-) (Yaesu FT-736R) and another for local work (Kenwood TS-790E). Of course, all of them could be used in the others roles, but this is my first approach.

I have ordered an AMSAT-UK LVB Tracker Kit (I have ordered the cheapest one, as I plan to do a custom case and add my own display and buttons) and will work also on the FT-847 CAT control from a tracking program (I will look for a program which cares about Doppler)

So, all in all, things are progressing!

73 JOSE EB5AGV

Back to SATs!

Well, not yet, but, after 10 years without elevation antennas, they are back in my tower !

Here you have a picture of the installation done during this weekend. Now is the turn for the tracking interface... more to come!!!

73 JOSE EB5AGV