Michael Kuhne, DB6NT, attended the meeting and
brought along his superb AO40 satellite receiver for the 24GHz downlink.
The module is a self-contained downconverter with a 144MHz IF. Placed at
the focal point of this Procomm dish, it produced an impressive amount
of Sun noise on the 24GHz band. The photo on the right shows Michael and
his son setting up the dish on Sun noise during the Saturday afternoon.
Here's a close up of the 24GHz receiver. Notice
the feedhorn... this was a single tube with a "slice" of PTFE inside it
to encourage circular polarisation. When I asked DB6NT for further details
of this he just said it was done by trial and error until it was right!
This is what a lot of us have been waiting for...
a 4dB noise figure preamp for 47GHz!
Michael, DB6NT, has made this "one-off" module
using some devices he managed to acquire in small quantities only. So be
patient folks, they are not on the market yet! The preamp is the module
upper left in the photo.
This is one of Michael's 24GHz Power Amplifiers
using state-of-the-art devices. The high quality of his products is clearly
evident in this photo.
