[amsat-bb] Re: Using a scanner to hear the FM sats?

[Jim Jerzycke]

RG-6 works great for receiving. It's low-loss, easy to
find, and cheap. You buy it premade at Home Depot or
Lowe's with F connctors on it, and just use adapters
on the antenna and radio. I've done this many times
and had excellent results. Don't worry about the 75~50
Ohm impedance mismatch, as it simply doesn't matter
when compared to the low-loss and easy availability of
RG-6. One of my friends went so far as to replace his
RG-6 with 9913 because he was worried about the
mismatch, and he could see NO DIFFERENCE other than
his wallet was considerably lighter! The loss
difference at 1GHz between RG-6 and 9913 is about
1.5dB per 100, whereas the price difference is about
50 bucks. I'll take the $50!
73, Jim  KQ6EA

--- Michael Tondee <mat_62 at netcommander.com> wrote:

> Due to some money issues, I had to sell all my sat
> gear including my 
> beloved  TS-2000X. I've been going through some of
> my old gear and 
> rustled up a Radio shack VHF/UHF scanner that covers
> ham frequencies. Do 
> you think it would be possible to hear the FM sats
> with it? I have a 
> homebrew 11 element  linearly polarized yagi and I
> can still track the 
> sats via computer rotator control.
> I can make it where I have a short run of cable to
> the antennas since I 
> don't have preamps anymore.
> I'm also wondering about using some 75ohm RG6 quad
> shield satellite TV 
> cable for receiving. Would this be better or worse
> than 9913 with the 
> scanner? Kind of grabbing at straws here but I'm
> wondering if anyone 
> thinks it would work before I invest too much time
> into it.
> Tnx and 73,
> Michael, W4HIJ
> _______________________________________________
> Sent via AMSAT-BB at amsat.org. Opinions expressed are
> those of the author.
> Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the
> amateur satellite program!
> Subscription settings:
> http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
>