Radio astromomy.

[mikemasey (Mike)]

Hi there every one,
I have a short wave reciever just colecting dust at home.
Is it posible to put it to some use as a reciever of say the sun?
I is 0hz up to 30mhz am with ssb if needed.
Will a long wire Ae be ok or do I need to rig up a dipoler or yargy or some such??

Thanks in advance,

mike.

[Clint Jeffrey (Clint Jeffrey)]

Hi Mike,
I just joined up and went looking for things Radio Astronomy, I see you had a lot of responses to your question!...

Do you still have the receiver, did you ever get an answer to your question?

Cheers
Clint - Melbounre

[tonybarry (Tony)]

Hi Clint,

Radio astronomy is not practiced a great deal by the amateur astronomy community. It requires **substantially** more equipment.

The Jupiter radio project had some coverage by Silicon Chip a couple of years ago.

I think ASNSW has a 5 metre radio dish from an old earth station out at Wiruna (but I am not sure about this).

Regards,
Tony Barry

[astroearth (Carl)]

Hi Mike,

A short wave receiver is fine for Jupiter and the Sun. A long wire will do the trick a yagi will be too large for low frequency 0~ 30 Mhz.
Long wire antennas are simple to make the formula is 468/frequency.
You can hear Jupiter's lightning storms around 15 Mhz. spectrum where the antennas are much smaller. I usually work in the high end of the radio around the 21 cm hydrogen band.
Still you will be surprised what you can hear with just a short wave radio.
Meteor pings are interesting you can sometime get FM radio stations for a few seconds as the radio waves bounce of the meteor's trail.