[amsat-bb] Re: Station not coming together - the full post (sorry for repost, reply to this)

[Jim Wright]

Google on Jerry's "Texas Potato Masher II".  His changes to the original 
are worth the effort.  I built one each and worked AO51 with them using 
5 watts and an HT.  Progressed to M2 beams and UHF preamp and retired 
the IIs for possible field day use.  They are easy to make with PVC and 
#12 house wire.  A length of 12/2 with ground or 12/3 will get you the 
wire if the junk box is empty.

73,
Jim

Edward Cole wrote:

>At 09:07 PM 3/6/2007, Edward Cole wrote:
>
>
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>>Jonny,
>>
>>My impression of Hamtronics equipment  --snip
>>    
>>
>
>Sorry should have written Matt.  Also Ramsey instead of Hamtronics, 
>though they are about the same in performance.
>
>Matt, try running your preamp at the antenna as the first step and 
>see if you improve your reception.  I would also move the antenna 
>away from the other antenna.
>
>Then if still not good enough reception try a 2m whip.  If the whip 
>works better then you know you have a problem with the 
>eggbeater.  Does the eggbeater have a ground plane under it?  If so 
>this would favor overhead reception vs. on the horizon.  The 
>eggbeater is circular polarized for over head directions; did you 
>make it right-hand or left-hand circular polarization?  The simple 
>whip or small yagi actually work better since polarity on LEO sats 
>seem to shift a lot.
>
>For much better results you might tilt your eggbeater down to 
>20-degrees and mount a light TV rotator to swing it in azimuth.  In 
>this position you should have the ground-plane radials to make the 
>antenna directional.  I belive that is what Jerry, K5OE, ended up 
>doing to maximize his use of this antenna.  Using an Arrow antenna 
>mounted this way has worked very nicely for many LEO operators.
>
>
>73,
>Ed - KL7UW
>======================================
>  BP40IQ   50-MHz - 10-GHz   www.kl7uw.com
>144-EME: FT-847, mgf-1801, 4x-xpol-20, 185w
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