As per my last post, I have been getting pretty excited about working satellites. However relying on the little ‘rubber duck’ antenna that came with the IC-T90A hand held does limit the range in a way that I could only really work the satellites at high elevation angles. With costs of commercial V/U antennas for satellite work usually over $200 AUD, it was time to build my own.
I did have some constraints around the antenna design:
- It had to cost under $50 to make.
- No speciality materials required – I could either readily purchase from a shop, or I already had materials on hand.
- It had to be made using tools I had on hand.
The last point ruled out making a crossed yagi antenna to my standards as it would require a drill press to successfully fabricate (I am bad at drilling square!)
In the end a quick google found me looking at making a Moxon designed by LY3LP and modified by M1GEO, but I really wanted to get some close ups of some of the more important parts of the build. What follows is an abbreviated build guide with photos. In all, it took less than 2 hours to construct.
Update 22/12/2018 2.15pm – Yep, this antenna is a winner – here is the audio from the AO-91 pass @ 2018-12-22 1342 AEDT. Big improvement – action starts at around 2mins in.