Going Whole-Hog on a First Satellite Ground Station

When most radio enthusiasts start trying to pick up signals from satellites, they might put together a quick-and-dirty Yagi antenna and try to catch a repeater as is passes overhead, …. Going Whole-Hog on a First Satellite Ground Station. But [Cranktown City] had a different approach.

He found an eight-foot dish online and built a massive articulating base station out of it as his first exploration into the world of satellites. The first problem that needs to be solved with a dish of this size is its mounting location. This installation uses a large post and concrete foundation with a custom-fabricated metal base at the bottom.

The metal base houses all of the electronics not just for receiving signals from the dish, but also for orienting it properly. That includes a large metal gear driven by a wheelchair motor to control its azimuth and a linear actuator to take care of its elevation. Getting the large dish onto the frame was its own ordeal, complicated by the fact that it’s not uniform in its shape and has to be mounted in a specific orientation.