Track the Movement of the Milky Way With This DIY Software-Defined Radio Telescope

[gary]

"Detect galactic hydrogen using roof flashing, a paint-thinner can, and a software-defined radio", article by David Schneider, IEEE Spectrum Magazine,
September 2019.

The author estimates the project cost at around USD150 (AUD225).



Article here :-
https://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/hands-on/track-the-movement-of-the-milky-way-with-this-diy-radio-telescope

[bojan]

Hi Gary,

Thank you for the reminder....
It was quite some time when I (successfuly) played with 21cm receiver, using preamps from mini-circuits and spectrum analyser as receiver and data recorder.
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=113407&page=4
The main drawback of that setup was power consumption... ~ 600W over couple of days/weeks for full sky scan resulted in notieably warmer room (and significantly higher power bill).

After that I purchased Nooelec dongle (with TCXO) to try low-power setup.
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=148874).
The plan was to use Spectrum Analyser software (freeware) which was quite powerful then (https://eartoearoak.com/software/rtlsdr-scanner).

Another app I tried then was very clumsy and basic, so I never really used it: (https://www.rtl-sdr.com/tag/spectrum-analyzer-2/)

I think it is now time to revive and continue with the project, maybe the newer applications are even better.

[bojan]

Hmmm

I tried the suggested software (HDSDR), but I couldn't find the way how to save data in numerical form, for analisys later.
RTLSDR_scanner has that capability.

[bojan]

OK..
I tried the latest RTL-scanner (installed from Git-hub installer), with Nooelec dongle, see attached...
It works OK.

Another potentially suitable app is this one (couple of years ago it was not so good..):
https://github.com/pavels/spektrum/releases
However, now it doesn't work on my desktop for some reason any more (blank screen. It is written in "processing".. another temp language..)