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All the gear at Dapto was initially valve (Tube) based, I remember the first solid state transistor "samples" we got for the front end. Amazing in the late 60's to have a transistor that worked at 440 megs, without needing liquid nitrogen. Only we were throwing several hundred watts at the moon and getting maybe 1 watt reflected back to us.
The Wollongong Uni supported the group with the building and some equipment as well as machining services for feed horns etc.
Lyle Patterson, VK2ALU was the leader, and the call sign used was, I think, VK2AMW, Amateur Radio Wollongong. Too long ago, almost a lifetime in the past ! I have trouble remembering what happened this morning, let alone 60 years ago ! I also remember how cold it was in that building without heat etc, in the middle of winter. Tuning up on sun noise and waiting for the moon to rise. Hearing your own signals a second or so later was a kick as well, all CW, no voice, and manually tuning the receiver to cope with the moons relative motion and the Doppler effect. All so simple now with SDR's and computers. I suppose its the same with optical, all so simple with CCD cameras and computer driven mounts. The dish drive needed 3 phases, 415 volts ac, and also the main drive motor was a wound rotor type, needing resistors in the rotor to control the speed. All good stuff, and seat of the pants observing.
Its easier now, but do you learn as much ? Probably not, as its all been done and if you have the dosh, you can go and buy the gear to do it.
Never did get my 3 meter dish working properly as the F to D was all wrong for the frequency and the focal point was too far out. The dish was too shallow for 440 megs operation, the wavelength was too long. Nowadays, probably 10 gigs would work, and I seem to remember some experimentation at 10 gigs from Dapto just before it closed down. Gunn diode detectors and so on.
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