KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

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DIY for cheap satellite operation

Posted: 11 Jul 2018 11:34 AM PDT
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Yesterday, a guy on the /r/amateurradio sub-reddit asked:


Hello all, Ive got my tech back in October and have been lurking here for
about that long. Im looking to eventualy make some satellite contacts with
a DIY antenna but dont know what plans to go with. I would like to build a
dualband 2m/70cm yagi to transmit from my HT and receive with a handheld
scanner I have. I have some solid uninsulated copper wire currently. Thanks
in advance for any advice!


I was very interested in what kind of answers that he might have gotten, so
this morning, I clicked over to the post. I was surprised to find only one
comment, telling him to Google tape measure Yagis. So, I did a little
Googling of my own.

The first reference that caught my eye was the $4 Ham Radio Satellite
Antenna. I saw this web page a couple months ago, and was thinking about
building it, but havent gotten around to it yet. It looks like a very cool
and easy project.



One thing I was wondering about is why the 2m and 70 cm elements arent
perpendicular to one another as they are on the commercial antennas. I
guess since this antenna seems to work just fine (I found a YouTube video
showing one guy in the UK using it), Im guessing that the elements dont
need to be perpendicular, but there must be some reason that Arrow and Elk
build them that way. Anyone know?

With a little more Googling, I found VE2ZAZs homebrew satellite antenna.
One of the cool links on this page is to plans for building KI0AGs Micro
Duplexer. I always wondered what was in one of these things, and now I know.

The page notes that theres a PC board for the project available from Fair
Circuits. The board uses surface mount components, though. Im wondering if
I can simply build this on some perf board, though. I think that I have all
the toroid cores and silver mica caps I need. On the other hand, the
surface-mount inductors are only $2.50 each and buying all the components
and printed circuit boards greatly increases the chances that Ill actually
build the thing.


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