Amateur Radio Astronomy
This activity combines my interest in astronomy with my love of radio. Not much has been done in this area, but it is my current overriding interest (circa 2013-2017).
As this website is largely a method of documenting the activity for my records, the expansion of material over time will be in fits and starts.
Separate to details of my activities, at the very end of this page, is a link to a Pinterest compilation of URLs pointing to various radio astronomy subjects on the 'net which I have found useful.
Hydrogen Line Observations
The purpose of these activities is to assemble a microwave frequency system (1.42GHz) and gain experience at this frequency using hydrogen line observations as the target.
Ancillary Radio Astronomy Activities
These are activities which might precede formal observations and experiments. They include familiarisation with test equipment, site evaluation, learning general principles, system measurements, antenna tuning, tracking and alignment, and so on. These activities provide reference material in support of formal projects.
Past Activity
Some 23 years ago I did a small project in radio astronomy which involved interferometry of the Sun. Due to retirement of the old PCs where data was stored, the only remaining details of this activity are as shown below...
The summing of the output of the two UHF TV antennas was done by using a TV signal splitter in reverse and an unmodified communications receiver was used. The output SSB audio was rectified and filtered to produce a reasonable interferometry response given the simple nature of the system.
Pinterest Links
A personal compilation of URLs which are drawn from my browser bookmarks can be found here.