linzeal's Journal: I am starting a Blog on building a Radio telescope

SRT telescope for CR.....

Never really wrote a blog per se, anyone have any good advice on how to keep it interesting for me and anyone who may stumble upon it? I am getting a digital camera to show what I am working on, and I might load up some Multisim files for the electronics. Is the free blogger by google good enough for doing that? I can host the files on a FTP in my DMZ at home.

will you cross post sometimes?

[heliocentric]

Will you still somtimes let this community know when to check your other blog? I'm not asking for a double post of every little gem, just an occasional "Hey, we done went and built us a somthin' go'n check it out na' vonst."

Re:will you cross post sometimes?

[linzeal]

Sure sure, heh.

That's very cool

[PD]

When I was a kid, I was a member of the Grand Rapids Amateur Astronomical Association. Now I'm a member of the Austin Astronomical Society. Anyway, the GRAAA had a little radio telescope. It was an array of 6 parabolic dishes mounted on a steel frame. The total size was probably 1x1.5 meters. The radio was a VHF receiver, and it was connected to a paper plotter.

If you find making electronics that work in the Ghz range to be daunting, then you might consider a lower frequency. VHF is a lot easier to build g

Re:That's very cool

[linzeal]

Yeah, I am going to some local amastro meets up here that my astronomy teacher has been talking up and will be seeing about getting a nice used 8" or so telescope from the folks there, hopefully.

Well I need to learn to work in the GHZ range for a few reasons. For one, I want to study IPN [nasa.gov]range or greater equipment at the electronic level. Two, I need to something that challanges me for the next year or two until I can attempt more sophisticated mechatronic projects I have been studying that will require

Re:That's very cool

[schmaltz]

That is rockin', dude. It's lite on detail, but Carl Sagan's book "Contact" is kinda inspirational in the scheme of large-ears-hearing-distant-electromagnetic-events dept.

You probably know, but last year Grote Reber passed; he built one of the first radio telescopes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/25/obituaries/25 R EB E.html?ex=1064116800&en=e452366931a2c017&ei=50 70

Maybe you can answer a silly question- I built a couple wifi antennas recently. Their relative signal-improving rating is called "d