This blog post will be a compiled list of everything I have currently done with my radio telescope, which is essentially just an antenna currently. These have been done off and on from the past 2 years with massive hiatuses in progress or workload, a bad habit that I intend to break in the coming year.
The final goal of this project is to build a dish that can scan the sky in the radio band and create a heat map of radio spots. Currently, the dish is unoperational and is damaged somehow so my first task is fixing it before I can even begin.
First Designs
Here shows the first design ideas I have for the antenna stand, my laptop being the data processing device needed to be directly and conveniantly plugged into the antenna.
Current State
The stand and wheel system was successfully built, however, this was left outside and the rain and time withered away the wheel system until it was ultimately abandoned. The current system just has 4 omni-directional wheels on each corner of the frame and has been adequate at its task of moving the antenna out and in of the garage.
Listening to the frequency range of any known satellite yields no results, whilst just a pair of bunny ears is able to pick up radio stations and even the GOES 15 satellite signal as it flew overhead. I will attempt to repair the satellite dish but also using a home-made antenna attempt to recieve weather data from the GOES or even the Himawari geo-stationary satellite.
To Do
- Recieve images/weather data from either GOES or Himawari
- Build antenna base with motors for rotation freedoms
- Scan the sky?