A small radio telescope I have assembled for a personal SETI project.
Special thanks to SETILeague http://setileague.org, Radio Astronomy Supplies http://radioastronomysupplies.com, Embrasat (Dish Manufaturer, Brazil) http://embrasat.com.br, and Yaesu http://yaesu.com.

Details:
- 1,80m Dish Antenna (manufactured by Embrasat)
- 1300-1500mhz L-Band Feedhorn (By RAS)
- 1300-1500mhz Low Noise Amplifier - 28dB gain (By RAS)
- Yaesu VR-5000 All Mode 100Khz - 2.6Ghz Receiver

Located in Brazil

Used in 1420mhz Drift-Scan observations (until such time when the antenna has a rotator)

... Details:
- 1,80m Dish Antenna (manufactured by Embrasat)
- 1300-1500mhz L-Band Feedhorn (By RAS)
- 1300-1500mhz Low Noise Amplifier - 28dB gain (By RAS)
- Yaesu VR-5000 All Mode 100Khz - 2.6Ghz Receiver

Located in Brazil

Used in 1420mhz Drift-Scan observations (until such time when the antenna has a rotator)

WOW!

;-)

Excellent stuff!

I wouldn't worry too much about a rotator unless you wish to do targeted listening for such as the nearby discovered "Kepler" exoplanet systems.

I'm sure you know already but an important point for when you find some sort of signal of some kind is: You must know where your dish is pointing...


Keep us posted on what you find!

Good luck,

Keep searchin',
Martin

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Well, I keep my antenna always pointing to 90 degrees elevation, i.e: pointing straight upward, and I use Microsoft WorldWide telescope to know where my dish is pointing.
By a very lucky coincidence, at some time of the day, because of my location, my antenna passes very close to Chi1 Sagittarii, which is close to the location of the Wow! Signal. So to attempt to find Wow! I don't even need to steer my antenna :)

It's actually not as expensive as it looks. Look:

The dish: about $260
RAS Feed + LNA + Feed Mount: $165 plus shipping
Yaesu VR-5000 Receiver: About $1240 or less
Coax cables, connectors, and a power supply for the LNA are so cheap I'm not even mentioning its prices

Note: These prices were converted from Brazilian Reais to US Dollars, so they are very rough estimates.

There is a broad range of receivers you can choose from, for a receiver that isn't very expensive I would recommend you this one http://winradio.com/home/g305e.htm . It is an excellent PC-based receiver.

I am currently learning some electronics to see if I can build my own dish, build an LNA, etc.

I wish I had the time to be able to build one of those. Good job. Any updates on your results?

It's actually not as expensive as it looks. Look:

The dish: about $260
RAS Feed + LNA + Feed Mount: $165 plus shipping
Yaesu VR-5000 Receiver: About $1240 or less
Coax cables, connectors, and a power supply for the LNA are so cheap I'm not even mentioning its prices

Note: These prices were converted from Brazilian Reais to US Dollars, so they are very rough estimates.

There is a broad range of receivers you can choose from, for a receiver that isn't very expensive I would recommend you this one http://winradio.com/home/g305e.htm . It is an excellent PC-based receiver.

I am currently learning some electronics to see if I can build my own dish, build an LNA, etc.

All very interesting and exciting, Bruno....do keep us all updated on how
your getting on. I've got an Icom IC-R7000 that goes upto 2 GHz.

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The Kite Fliers

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Slight problem: There doesn't seem to be any not-so-expensive antenna rotator out there (Yaesu rotators are too small for my antenna's mast) :-( I considered building my own azimuth/elevation rotator, which, from what I know, would require two motors. However, I was unable to find a good guide on making one in the internet. I'm considering using the aid of one of my school teachers, who is specialised in the subject. Any ideas?

Hi this is very interesting. I had only just discovered setileague.org the other day after reading a back issue of Australian Sky & Telescope magazine.

I visited the Seti League's website in search of further information but found their technical manual to be a little confusing and outdated. So congrats to Bruno for getting his own radio telescope running.

Bruno do you have any more pictures as the one linked in your first post seems to be broken?

Unfortunately no, I don't have any good images now. I'll be sure to take a few next time I go to the observation site, and then I'll post them ASAP.

By the way, yes, Setileague's radio telescope block diagram is old, it hasn't been updated since 2003