The idea for the project started in 2009 by collecting as much information as possible from similar solution
(thanks to OK1DFC and his neat WEB site) as well as HB9SV and his precious suggestions
The most interesting data on the dish are:
| Diameter | 10m |
| F/D | 0.5 |
| Wire mesh | 6mm |
| Feeder | Septum by OM6AA design |
The project was compromised with the locally available material and the building took all most 2 yeas to bring it to the current status.
After installing the feeder, tested today (9th Sept 2011) to make a sun noise measurement, after (a not very fancy) focusing of the dish i got a 24.4 db,
all most congruent with VK3UM predictions.
I was using a 37db gain 0.27 db NF LNA from G4DDK.
Also moon noise is clearly detectable with about 1db of extra noise
The initial goal will be to use the dish for EME on 23cm and still keeping the current array to continue on 70cm.
Please note the background RF pollution
After some time of use (today 3rd/March/2012) the dish did not miss the promises, one interesting test on what type of
sensitivity can be achieved was carried out by OK1DFC with him radiating a calibrated power level.
The signal was then received and misured using WSJT.
The test results can be found on Zdenek nice web site: OK1DFC Results
The following is a sun noise reading in a quiet sun condition(but not a quiet band), VK3UM EMECalc was predicting 22.65db. The observation was done on Jan-23rd-2020 as a matter of antenna check
The following is a moon noise reading :
At the right the outgoing signal at the left the received CW echo (24th-Aug-2013 1000w) on a 5db/div scale:
