In the world of amateur radio, establishing your own setup and making your first contact can be a rewarding experience. This was evident in the recent project undertaken by Adam Laczkó, OM2ADM, an 18-year-old HAM enthusiast from Slovakia. Adam decided to build a QO-100 station as part of his final school project, and here’s a…
L-Band Helix Antenna for Radio Astronomy – A Practical Guide
Radio astronomy opens a window to the universe by capturing radio waves emitted by celestial objects. Recently, I had the pleasure of discussing a successful H1 antenna setup with Huub, an enthusiast who has been experimenting with various configurations to optimize his radio astronomy observations. In this post, I will share insights from our exchange,…
IceConeFeed Right Hand Circular!
The nominal QO100 uplink which is using a dish reflector requires a left hand circular polarized (LHCP) feed. This is because the dish reflection mirrors the polarization and turns it from left to right hand as the satellite expects it. But what if you have a dual reflector like OH2JKU in Finnland? You need to…
L-Band Antenna Updates
Our L-band antenna design has received numerous upgrades and additional mounting options to ease installation and usage: You can order stand alone antennas or a full bundle including all mounting adapters for quick installation. -> Find detailed antenna specifications here. -> Check out our live L-band receiver stations by visiting a live web SDR here….
United Nations on QO100 / 4U100QO
From May 18-20 dx-adventure will be QRV on #QO100 from the roof top of the #UnitedNations in #Vienna using #4U100QO. We have donated #IceConeFeed antennas which will later be handed over to the United Nations Amateur Radio Contest DX Club (ARCDXC). Ready for #QSO? Image are courtesy and copyright of dx-adventure.
Satellite Dish Modification
On rare occasions the IceConeFeed does not have enough mechanical clearance to be mounted on a specific dish arm. In order to check mechanical compatibility upfront you can use the 2D template and the procedure explained here. Paulo, F5VMJ, demonstrates on how to modify the dish arm to make enough room for mounting the IceConeFeed…
IceConeFeed TX Performance
Dieter DC6EH from Kempen conducted a direct performance comparision of the IceConeFeed v2.0 vs v2.1. A continuous 1750Hz tone in USB was sent on 10498.960 MHz. He used the WebSDR http://websdr.is0grb.it:8901 for SNR measurements. Station setup was a 85cm Fuba sat dish. As shown by the spectrum below v2.1 features almost the same transmission performance…
Schulkontakt Antarktis mit IceConeFeed v2.1
Am 22.03.2023 ging die Schulstation DL0CFG der Carl-Friedrich-Gauß-Schule in Friedland OT Groß Schneen QRV mit der Neumeyer Station III in der Antarktis und zeitgleich der Polarstern über QO100. Die Station war mit einem neuen IceConeFeed v2.1 von uns gesponsert worden. Dazu schreibt Frank, DL5AAR: Vielen Dank für die Überlassung der neuen Version deiner IceConeFeed. Wir…
Stable Diffusion
The latest developments in AI are, for the lack of a better word: awesome. And before I spend to much time on describing what I tried and what I achieved and with how little effort I did all this, I let AI do it! ChatGPT the stage is yours: Let me give you a concrete…
IceConeFeed v2.1 on DATV
Dieter DC6EH aus Kempen berichtet über den Einsatz vom IceConeFeed v2.1 bei DATV: “Die ersten Empfangsversuche sind sehr positiv verlaufen. Nachdem ich die Ice Cone V2 gegen die neue V2.1 getauscht habe, gab es auf DATV eine Verbesserung um +0,8 dB – 0,7 dB. Meine Bedingungen waren der Empfang der DATV-Bake ohne weitere Sendesignale auf…