Low-Cost DIY Satellite Ground Station
Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2020 9:14 am
Hi, I'm looking to build a low-cost UHF satellite ground station and I'm wondering if I can get any of your advice.
When I was in school we had a UHF satellite ground station with Yaesu base station, a circularly polarized Yagi connected to an LNA, the base station was connected to a TNC which was connected to a laptop that ran Ham Radio Deluxe. The antenna had a rotator to track the satellite as well.
What I would like to do is do a lower cost ground station that is more portable. I was thinking the following:
1) Yardstick One by Great Scott gadgets as the transciever(https://greatscottgadgets.com/yardstickone/)
2) Nooelec LNA for receiving(https://www.nooelec.com/store/lana.html)
3) Circularly polarized Homemade PVC yagi antenna (http://www.mtmscientific.com/yagi.html)
4) Some sort of RF circulator to separate receiving and transmitting paths and to not blow out the LNA.
5) Some sort of PA for transmitting. Thinking 100W.
6) I would build my own antenna rotator.
7) To compensate for doppler, my understanding is that the Yardstick One can be tuned via a custom written Python program.
8) The decoding of AX25 packets will be done in python or maybe a canned program.
So I'm throwing this component list out there to see if you guys think this is possible. But moreso to see if any of your have any suggestions as to what I can use for these components! Any help would be greatly appreciated!
When I was in school we had a UHF satellite ground station with Yaesu base station, a circularly polarized Yagi connected to an LNA, the base station was connected to a TNC which was connected to a laptop that ran Ham Radio Deluxe. The antenna had a rotator to track the satellite as well.
What I would like to do is do a lower cost ground station that is more portable. I was thinking the following:
1) Yardstick One by Great Scott gadgets as the transciever(https://greatscottgadgets.com/yardstickone/)
2) Nooelec LNA for receiving(https://www.nooelec.com/store/lana.html)
3) Circularly polarized Homemade PVC yagi antenna (http://www.mtmscientific.com/yagi.html)
4) Some sort of RF circulator to separate receiving and transmitting paths and to not blow out the LNA.
5) Some sort of PA for transmitting. Thinking 100W.
6) I would build my own antenna rotator.
7) To compensate for doppler, my understanding is that the Yardstick One can be tuned via a custom written Python program.
8) The decoding of AX25 packets will be done in python or maybe a canned program.
So I'm throwing this component list out there to see if you guys think this is possible. But moreso to see if any of your have any suggestions as to what I can use for these components! Any help would be greatly appreciated!