[SMCARA] Fwd: Schedule information for Arecibo EME

[fletchv3 at comcast.net]

Greetings all; 





Next Arecibo test will be Monday 2130 to 2300. They are located at grid square FK68OI 

For the new hams in the group, Arecibo is a giant radio astronomy site in KP4 land. They are operating on 432 this week as part of a test to determine what minimum station requirements are for the upcoming echos of Apollo event. The antenna is a 1000 ft. diameter spherical dish. They can only steer the feed which explains the short window. You may have seen the dish in one of the James Bond movies. You should be able to hear them clearly with a short 432 yagi and a radio like the IC-706 or FT-857. Point at the moon and try it. 

Antenna: Tx and Rx with the same circular polarization (I don't know 
which sense). The expectation is that ground stations will use linear 
polarization, and thus Faraday will not be a problem. 

Rx: GaAsFET preamp into a TS-2000. 

Tx: A second TS-2000 driving a 3CX800, 500 W measured output. 

T/R switchover was done with a hand-operated mechanical switch -- one 
reason why their T/R turnaround time sometimes seemed slow. They expect 
to have a T/R relay in place for the session on Monday. 

Once again: KP4AO expects to be QRV on 432.045 from about 2100 to 2330 
UTC on Monday. 


Here is a good link to what is going on with Aricibo. 
http://www.ok2kkw.com/arecibo_2010pre.htm 

Good Luck if you try to work them, should be easy. 

73 
Fletch 
K3JYD