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.

[Clint Jeffrey (Clint Jeffrey)]

Hi Everyone...I'm Section Director of Radio Astronomy of the Astronomical Society of Victoria (ASV), we have a website www.lmro.org.au where some of our experiments are displayed with more to come on line fairly soon.

Our big project over the next 12 to 20 months is the installation of a 28 foot Parabolic Dish Antenna at the Society's Dark Sky Site located 12 Kilometers north of Heathcote central Victoria.

This Radio Telescope will allow us to finally do some 'real' Radio Astronomy we expect to be able to operate the Antenna from 400 MHz to as high as 10 GHz, this covers many possibilities for research from Hydrogen Line observations to Quasar and Pulsar detection to reflecting a radio signal off the Moon using the Society's Amateur Radio Station VK3EKH.

Incidentally I operate ASV's Amateur Radio Station every Friday Night at 22:00 UTC on 3541KHz LSB, I generally broadcast latest Astronomical News, announce ASV events to News from NASA and ESA sources, I go for about 30 minutes to 45 minutes, so if you are a Radio Amateur or a Short Wave Listener then tune in on Friday nights to VK3EKH...send signal reports to vk3ekh@bigpond.com for more information on the station go to www.qrz.com/db/vk3ekh

Lot's to do over the next 12 months but once the Dish is operational the Sky's the limit as they say...

I'll try to keep this Forum updated with things as they happen....

Regards

Clint Jeffrey - VK3CSJ
Narre Warren South

[bojan]

Hi Clint,
It is nice to see your post here - I remember our discussions about your dish when we were both working at PBN
Wish you luck with the project!

[Barrykgerdes]

The ASNSW still has the old Fleurs 16ft dish at Wiruna. This aerial was originally used to look at the hydrogen emissions at 1420 Mhz. It now has has a secondary dipole for the 400Mhz area. However the condition of the rest of the dish is in need of repair.

About three years ago I had a look at the dish that had been ignored for many years do to negative results from all the tests. I salvaged the old dipole and re-built it back to original and it responded well to signals at 1420Mhz. A new 1420Mhz low noise pre-amp was obtained and worked well on bench testing with a test signal and simple dipole. I built a low noise amp for 400 Mhz that also worked on bench tests. The main receiver has become a HP 140 Spectrum analyzer from the 1970's that I provided. The theoretical sensitivity with the preamp should be in the region of -135dbm.

However preliminary testing showed the 1420Mhz pre-amp to be unstable when connected to the dipole and no hydrogen noise was observed when the aerial was pointed at the Sun. No testing was done at 400Mhz

I was physically unable to carry out the required repairs to the aerial due to age and now illness and nothing has been done since.

The project could do with some rejuvenation from an enthusiastic younger group but I can only provide technical advice.

Barry

PS I am also an "old-timer" 53 years Radio Ham VK2ZAH. I never bothered with code so only had a limited licence 'til they changed the rules a few years ago. I now have a full licence with my old call sign. I do have TX/RX equipment for 80m to 432Mhz but seldom even turn the receiver on.