Equipment Required

[I.C.D]

G'Day All,
What type of radio equipment do you need to have to do radio astronomy LF, HF,VHF, UHF,GigHZ .
I was going through the web and come across a bloke in England who was using UHF radio (400MHZ??) receiver with a Yagi beam and his telescope on Jupiter , when move off the planet he had no signal and when he went back their was signal .The trouble is I didn't save his web site and I would like to know more.

Ian C

[tonybarry]

Silicon Chip had an article about it a while back.

http://www.siliconchip.com.au/cms/A_110795/article.html

Regards,
Tony Barry

[Barrykgerdes]

Hi Ian
Tony has given you a source for a basic radio to listen for extra terrestrial radio noise.

This extra terrestrial noise is generated by the molecular movement in the objects under observation. It covers the entire radio spectrum from DC through UHF, Microwave,Infra red, Visible etc. Different atoms radiate different frequencies which can identify their presence.

The simple HF receivers can hear the noise but cannot pinpoint it. As the frequency under observation increases it becomes possible to make highly directional aerials which allow "mapping" of the source.

Jupiter and the Sun are a great source of radio signals that can be identified and a wide range receiver with a highly directional aerial pointed at it will find lots of emissions at more specific frequencies.

If you have one of those UHF scanners and make a wide band yagi type aerial to cover say 400-500 MHz and point it at jupiter you will hear all sorts of stuff eminating from it.

Barry