> Bob, You might want to consider a Helical antenna > for your mobile station. It would have less wind > drag and easier to rotate.
Actually, I'm beginning to think we will build our own dish. I have a 5' solid metal dish. I think we will just use it as a form and lay in some copper strips evry 4 inches or so in one dimension, then overlay say, #12 copper wire every 1" in the other direction, and then solder each crossover point. The result will be a linear polarized 4' dish with very low aerodynamic crossection. A little structure behind it and is it should handle 70 MPH easily. I think 1/4" wide copper strap is used for winding some big motors, and should be easy to find. Using the flat strap for the supports gives a nice soldering cross point. We need the 4' dish to close the link when the balloon is 20 miles up. I dont think we can get that with a helix. My guess is the dish will give us about 24 dBi vertically polarized with a beamwidth of about 10 degrees? Bob, WB4APR _______________________________________________ Sent via [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
