Home Made Radio Telescope

Message boards : SETI@home Science : Home Made Radio Telescope

Author	Message
Bruno B.B Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 14 Oct 11 Posts: 11 Credit: 40,142 RAC: 0	Message 1164824 - Posted: 23 Oct 2011, 21:08:59 UTC
	Hello, I would like to know whether it is possible to have a small scale parabolic dish and the proper equipment and use it to Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence in my home. I've heard from setileague.org that it is possible indeed; however, I need help with that, because I do not know how to set up this equipment, nor where to get the equipment... especially the antenna, which, according to setileague.org, needs to have at least 3 meters in diameter and be able to use frequencies from 1.4Ghz - 1.7Ghz. Could anyone help me with that? Thanks in advance
	ID: 1164824 ·

Johnney Guinness Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 11 Sep 06 Posts: 2944 Credit: 2,305,966 RAC: 330	Message 1164901 - Posted: 24 Oct 2011, 3:22:52 UTC Last modified: 24 Oct 2011, 3:25:45 UTC
	setileague.org do have a tonne of info on their website. And its very good information. You can use any size dish to listen for ET, the point they are making is that the bigger the dish, the better chance you have. But if you only have a very small amount of money, you could in theory just use any home TV satellite dish, the type you see on the side of peoples houses. However if you go that route of buying a very cheap home TV satellite dish, you will still need to modify the receiver antenna. The receiver antenna is the bit that sits in the focal point of the dish. So you need to get your hands on an antenna receiver that operates around the 1.42 GHz range. If your just getting started, if i were you, i would search the internet for a forum where you can chat to radio fanatics and electronics geeks. There are loads of them on the internet and loads of guys that will give you the specific advice you need to get started! A lot of it boils down to how much money you want to spend. That depends on your budget and how serious you are about getting into this type of thing. It could swallow money very quickly. I suggest you start small. John. ____________
	ID: 1164901 ·

Josef W. Segur Volunteer developer Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 30 Oct 99 Posts: 3932 Credit: 934,327 RAC: 15	Message 1164945 - Posted: 24 Oct 2011, 5:36:53 UTC - in response to Message 1164901. Last modified: 24 Oct 2011, 5:38:08 UTC
	... However if you go that route of buying a very cheap home TV satellite dish, you will still need to modify the receiver antenna. The receiver antenna is the bit that sits in the focal point of the dish. So you need to get your hands on an antenna receiver that operates around the 1.42 GHz range. John. There's no requirement to listen around the 1.42 GHz range, using a frequency where the dish has fairly narrow beam width and higher gain could be a better choice. An 18 to 30 inch dish as is used for DirecTV or the Dish Network is far too small for 1.42 GHz but using the Ku band LNBF there would be some chance of detecting a strong signal. A C band 7 foot or up dish can be used at 1.42 GHz but has better gain around 4 GHz and good front end equipment is available at reasonable prices. Project BAMBI was working along those lines. Maybe they're still looking, but the web pages don't seem to have recent information. Joe
	ID: 1164945 ·

ML1 Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 25 Nov 01 Posts: 7137 Credit: 3,684,919 RAC: 956	Message 1166663 - Posted: 31 Oct 2011, 12:36:35 UTC - in response to Message 1166596.
	... In the WOW signal, there were apparently no spikes or triplets. What about any pulses then? Possibly there were not any pulses in this signal as well. We are left with possible gaussians in that signal. It became a wave, because it did not show up with any numbers in it. ... The 'excitement' about the "Wow!" signal was that it was clearly above the background noise and that it followed a gaussian profile for signal strength. That suggests receiving a signal that is continuous from a stationary point in the sky and that the field of view of the antenna has swept across that transmission. The exact shape of the signal strength profile vs time can be matched against that expected for the beamwidth for your antenna. Hopefully, you can then eliminate terrestrial possibilities such as aircraft, satellites, radar, or other interference or artefacts. Unfortunately, there is not enough detail for what was recorded for the "Wow!" signal to deduce much more than it was 'something'. Also, it has never been seen again... Keep searchin', Martin ____________ Mandriva Linux A user friendly OS! See new freedom Mageia2 The Future is what We make IT (GPLv3)
	ID: 1166663 ·

Duane Send message Joined: 23 Jun 08 Posts: 101 Credit: 1,131,111 RAC: 0	Message 1173065 - Posted: 22 Nov 2011, 21:44:28 UTC - in response to Message 1166663.
	... In the WOW signal, there were apparently no spikes or triplets. What about any pulses then? Possibly there were not any pulses in this signal as well. We are left with possible gaussians in that signal. It became a wave, because it did not show up with any numbers in it. ... The 'excitement' about the "Wow!" signal was that it was clearly above the background noise and that it followed a gaussian profile for signal strength. That suggests receiving a signal that is continuous from a stationary point in the sky and that the field of view of the antenna has swept across that transmission. The exact shape of the signal strength profile vs time can be matched against that expected for the beamwidth for your antenna. Hopefully, you can then eliminate terrestrial possibilities such as aircraft, satellites, radar, or other interference or artefacts. Unfortunately, there is not enough detail for what was recorded for the "Wow!" signal to deduce much more than it was 'something'. Also, it has never been seen again... Keep searchin', Martin The fact that is has never been seen again has caused many people, including myself, to be skeptical about if it actually occurred. While his devices may have recorded something, it is most likely to be just an error or some human source.
	ID: 1173065 ·

Bruno B.B Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 14 Oct 11 Posts: 11 Credit: 40,142 RAC: 0	Message 1193034 - Posted: 9 Feb 2012, 23:30:05 UTC
	Hello, I am happy to say that my Amateur Radio Telescope is done and has begun its observations into space. Here is the link to a thread I made about my radio telescope http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=66905
	ID: 1193034 ·

Message boards : SETI@home Science : Home Made Radio Telescope