[Lowfer] Hifer Sunday evening

[Dale Parfitt]

Mark Fields wrote:

>    Dale, what is "moon noise"?
>
>                                             73, Mark
>

Hi Mark,
All celestial objects that are warmer than deep space generate noise. For
example on my 14' dish I can measure almost 20dB of sun noise- the exact
amount depends on the solar flux at the time of measurement. The moon, being
a lot cooler is less- around 0.4 dB on my system at 23cM. On 10GHz I
measured nearly 1.3 dB of moon noise on an 8' dish.
This makes an excellent method to determine how well your system is working-
and on 10GHz, a great way to keep your dish aimed on the moon- just pan for
max noise.
Dale W4OP