EME 1296 Antenna and Rig

After my return from Mauritius I had this dish sitting in my garage inside the golf clubs case with prosistel rotors and all the trimmings, so I decided that it wasn’t going to collect dust like that, better to collect some rain outside in the backyard, along with some QSOs.

The dish at 3B8MB

I started to build a small structure, with a concrete foundation and a piece of Aluminium triangular tower to accomodate the antenna.

Poor man foundation
Adapting the AZ rotator bracket
Structure in place
Assembly of the dish skeleton
Testing AZ/EL movements
Almost ready
First Sun noise measurements
First RX on the moon

At this point I was almost ready, DB6NT transverter online, LNA already tested, good RX. No PA Yet

I ordered all the stuff to build a W6PQL LDMOS pallet, ad place everything in a fiberglass box right on the tower backside.

PA input return loss testing
PA on Dish, 500W easy to achieve
PA final position

I started to have a few QSOs with this small setup, with good reports. Unfortunately my window is somewhat limited by my house at moonrise and some very tall trees on moonset, so this will work only for fun.

My moonrise 🙁
My moonset 🙁
Since at that moment I had no PA yet, I had fun anyway at Christmas Time. Neighbours approved.