I am thinking about getting the FUNcube dongle. As I live in a studio apartment erecting an external antenna is an issue. I have a few shortwave receivers and at present use a random wire in the loft/attic and the earth wire terminated to the cold water pipe in the airing cupboard & 'Slinky' antenna streched across the ceiling in the bedsit room.

I do like the names you have given your shed and installation!

Weird you mention this as I was reading about this technique in a book I have called 'Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking' by Nicolas Collins.

It has a chapter dedicated to doing exactly this.   I feel an aerial coming on but its a secret at the moment !   I will try and dig out some details on what the books states another time.  It has some very good info in that may be of interest to you.

James

I read the s@n article but felt pretty underwhelmed by the second installment. I have vista as an operating system and it turns out the software isnt compatible with that system so im glad I never made the aeriel between editions.

your system looks good though so it will be good to see how it goes,

cheers

Hi,

In a previous life armed with a radio amateur license, a VHF set (2m band) and a 100W amplifier we used to go out on the moors and try Meteor Scatter.  Normally VHF is limited in range to about 100 - 200 miles, slightly further if you get a Tropospheric reflection, but with a reflection from a meteor trail which are very high in the sky, 1,500 to 2,000 miles is possible.

You either transmit your call sign and then leave a break and a station in say Italy or Spain will respond if you are lucky enough to be transmitting when a meteor comes through.  Or, you just listen for a strong station and reply when they leave a break.  The whole conversation is over in a couple of seconds.

Small meteors cause a very brief reflection and the distant station is head as a 'ping'.  Larger meteors or several at once can give several seconds of reflection and as the ionised trail moves, a Doppler shift can be heard requiring tuning of the receiver to be able to hear the whole conversation.  Really good operators will make 3 or 4 contacts, exchanging calls signs and signal strength reports in one long reflection.

It never ceased to amaze me the distance that could be obtained on a band that is normally relatively short range.

I haven't used a FUNCube so couldn't say how well it would work but we used to build our own Yagi (usually a 9 or 15 element) at 145MHz and fix pointing towards southern Europe.  I would have to say I haven't done any of this for nearly 30 years, but it was very interesting at the time.

Robin

Robin

I used to do the same Robin but from home.

200Watts and 2x13ele Cushcrafts and a DTR for high speed CW.

It was always exciting as you never knew what would happen.

From my hole in the ground I could reach out about 2000kms maximum.

Mike still G1HWY

Thanks for all your comments. I'm never too sure what I'm doing astronomy wise and electronically speaking a red mist descended somewhere after valves but before printed circuits. Anyway I followed the instructions found on the Internet and in the Sky and Night Magazine and low and behold it actually works. I too have encountered the Vista Spectrum Lab software issue and had to borrow my wife's laptop that runs using Windows 7.  It would have been helpful if Maplins provided a 'how to' sheet in with the BNC coax connector. Lots of cursing and the plug still drops off if I look at it. Grrr! The FunCube Dongle Pro+ and supporting software all works well. Very efficiently provided by Howard at Halincrest Ltd. The Yagi aerial works nicely and I have captured a few meteors. Saving up for a second hand computer to wire up and leave running in monitor mode.