5 ms·

This is nothing short of incredible. Radio is hard, even at HF (1-30mhz). It's very forgiving at HF though, and so is very approachable. This is where I spend m

This is nothing short of incredible. Radio is hard, even at HF (1-30mhz). It's very forgiving at HF though, and so is very approachable. This is where I spend my ham radio time dabbling and hacking away at things. VHF is harder, and UHF an order of magnitude harder. But 8-12Ghz? That's not for mere mortals. It's machining pieces at tight tolerances and movement measured in the smallest fractions. If this is what he does for fun, I wonder what he does for work?

myth2018 6y ago
I have no hands-on experience with homemade equipment for the GHz bands, but I've read that they are a bit less challenging than it seems at a first glance. Mostly because of the availability of GPS receivers providing highly stable, relatively cheap frequency references for transverters. Notice that I'm not saying this to demerit any achievement. My intention here is to be encouraging in case you intend to give it a try. A similar setup could allow you to operate moon bounce (CW and FT8 seems to be pretty active) and also work the Es'hail-2 geostationary satellite in case you're in range. So it's definitely a very promising field to invest in.
- texasbigdata 6y ago
  As an outsider what’s the order of magnitude on humans that have this setup currently functional? 100? 1,000? Etc.
  - DrAwdeOccarim 6y ago
    There are 774,562 amateur radio licensed people in the US [1]. I would assume 10% of them are super active, so 77,456, and of those super active people, I'd say 1% of them are pushing the boundaries. So 1000? [1] http://www.arrl.org/fcc-license-counts http://www.arrl.org/fcc-license-counts
    - texasbigdata 6y ago
      This comment is amazing. Thank you so much.
  - myth2018 6y ago
    That's a good question. I don't know how to estimate, but it might be around the thousands in fact. Most of active hams are more interested on making short contacts and exchanging call signs. Scientific and technical experimentation is pretty niche. However, since the Es'hail-2 has launched (a Qatar geostationary satellite carrying an amateur radio payload on the GHz bands), a new opportunity of making a lot of short contacts using narrow band modes like Morse code and computer-aided modes has opened, and then I believe there are currently many people operating GHz-capable gear in the area covered by that satellite (Europe, Africa, parts of Asia and Brazilian northeast). Although many of them are probably using their gear to log new contacts, you could say that they own the necessary setup to seek for satellite signals on that same band.
TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
> He uses a homemade 60-centimeter dish and relies on software-defined radios (SDRs) to accomplish the task. apropos I hope
mhh__ 6y ago
You have to make a blood sacrifice to the Voodoo gods in high speed electronics if you want it to work (is the saying, anyway) - i.e. the actual shape of the traces on the PCB starts to become important, and one can use this fact to form things like filters and directional couplers.
jjulius 6y ago
>If this is what he does for fun, I wonder what he does for work? He does electrical work for boats. https://youtu.be/hMsE1rxeOw4 https://youtu.be/hMsE1rxeOw4

myth2018 6y ago

I have no hands-on experience with homemade equipment for the GHz bands, but I've read that they are a bit less challenging than it seems at a first glance. Mostly because of the availability of GPS receivers providing highly stable, relatively cheap frequency references for transverters. Notice that I'm not saying this to demerit any achievement. My intention here is to be encouraging in case you intend to give it a try. A similar setup could allow you to operate moon bounce (CW and FT8 seems to be pretty active) and also work the Es'hail-2 geostationary satellite in case you're in range. So it's definitely a very promising field to invest in.

texasbigdata 6y ago
As an outsider what’s the order of magnitude on humans that have this setup currently functional? 100? 1,000? Etc.
- DrAwdeOccarim 6y ago
  There are 774,562 amateur radio licensed people in the US [1]. I would assume 10% of them are super active, so 77,456, and of those super active people, I'd say 1% of them are pushing the boundaries. So 1000? [1] http://www.arrl.org/fcc-license-counts http://www.arrl.org/fcc-license-counts
  - texasbigdata 6y ago
    This comment is amazing. Thank you so much.
- myth2018 6y ago
  That's a good question. I don't know how to estimate, but it might be around the thousands in fact. Most of active hams are more interested on making short contacts and exchanging call signs. Scientific and technical experimentation is pretty niche. However, since the Es'hail-2 has launched (a Qatar geostationary satellite carrying an amateur radio payload on the GHz bands), a new opportunity of making a lot of short contacts using narrow band modes like Morse code and computer-aided modes has opened, and then I believe there are currently many people operating GHz-capable gear in the area covered by that satellite (Europe, Africa, parts of Asia and Brazilian northeast). Although many of them are probably using their gear to log new contacts, you could say that they own the necessary setup to seek for satellite signals on that same band.

TedDoesntTalk 6y ago

> He uses a homemade 60-centimeter dish and relies on software-defined radios (SDRs) to accomplish the task. apropos I hope

mhh__ 6y ago

You have to make a blood sacrifice to the Voodoo gods in high speed electronics if you want it to work (is the saying, anyway) - i.e. the actual shape of the traces on the PCB starts to become important, and one can use this fact to form things like filters and directional couplers.

jjulius 6y ago

>If this is what he does for fun, I wonder what he does for work? He does electrical work for boats. https://youtu.be/hMsE1rxeOw4 https://youtu.be/hMsE1rxeOw4