Hello everyone, I’m new here so pardon me, if this has been discussed, but I didn’t really find anything to the topic: What else can be the dish + LNB used for aside of Othernet and/or DVB-S TV? I mean: I already have the LNB, will buy the dish very soon, there for sure is something else interesting to point it to, isn’t it?
(I don’t know whether other HAM folks have this strange habit to try to receive something from somewhere, but I do 
)
Look into qo-100 if you live in Europe.
Which LNB are you referring to? If it’s the Bullseye and you are a license amateur, you can experiment with the 10 GHz ham bands.
I received the “Universal Single LNB 10.7-12.75” with my Dreamcatcher - I believe this is the range just above the 3cm HAM band. Or am I mistaken? Sat tech is a new thing for me…
IF you are a licensed hamradio operator you can just do some experiments with a 2 dollar tx on 3 cm band look here:
http://f6hcc.free.fr/10ghz.htm
there are many sites use the hb100
That is a very nice web site, Alberto! Is it available in English? I can get the gist, but don’t know enough French to be able to read it.
Thanks.
Jerry
http://www.ham-radio.com/sbms/presentations/Walt_Clark/DROplexer.pdf
https://translate.google.it/translate?hl=it&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Ff6hcc.free.fr%2F10ghz.htm
you can find a lot of examples on the net, the magic word is “HB100” on google search.
Never say enough : the module work on 10500 , and need a little trim to go down on the ham radio band ( at least here in europe). there is a screw under the sticker,
Thank you, this is very helpful.
Jerry
My dream catcher LNB and Directv dish got me started with FTA satellite. A cheap receiver can be had on eBay for $25+. It will be able to receive Ku band signals and there are quite a few tv/radio stations on the satellites just waiting for you to receive them. Checkout lyngsat.com and Free satellite tv channels with Ku Band Dish 2017 - YouTube
My father has been into FTA satellite TV since 1989, when he smuggled his first SAT set across border from Austria to then socialist Czechoslovakia. I remember all the (paper) SAT magazines with satellite and channel lists he had subscribed in the 90’s and he still has two or three dishes on the rooftop, one even with remote-controlled home-made rotator/positioner. But it never caught me the same way, I’m more into data than into TV
You can always throw a bias-t inline and give a shot at radio astronomy, the sun gives a pretty big signal, I suppose you could do statistics and try to detect CMEs or solar wind changes, useful stuff like that to plan for HF prop changes.
I think a big 2m dish or larger works better but if you make a little stubby dipole in the focus of your dish, maybe a little magnetic loop would be better you can aim the big planet and try to get Jupiter-Io bursts on your HF set. Nasa sell a kit for just off 15m band using you regular DIY-ish wire antennas. https://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov/telescope/
Lots look at https://www.rtl-sdr.com/ for some other bias-t and SDR of all flavor hacks for ham radio and other.
More radio telescopy How to Build a Radio Telescope (See Satellites 35,000km Away!) - YouTube (spoiler it only detects the geostat band of satellites)
BTW you can get or make a LNA(low noise amplifier) to use instead of a LNB to stick right at or near a small dipole antenna in your dish focus and do radio and satellite stuff through the RX of a cheapo RTL-SDR, it is like $10 for both though you will need to either solder them together or make/buy a pigtail to connect them.
The HB100 is pretty awesome to play with especially if you mod it to open up the higher speeds detection. Outputs an audio carrier, just throw that at something form your drawer of LM386 op-amps or whatever and you can play speed cop, maybe with a dish even pick up aircraft, who knows?
I wish there was something cheap like the HB100 for ranging rather than Doppler.
it mixes its carrier signal beats it inverted into the Doppler leaving only the difference and makes the output signal so it is blind to which is the oscillator and which is the return, it only gives a Doppler difference not a approaching/retreating read.
hi, biketool. yes, indeed, it is a funny device to work with. don’t know if you have seen this:
Arduino + hb100 speed detection and you can see the distance too.
it is born to be used in alarm system so you need only the result of the reflection that is a very low frequency signal.
Maybe with a very large dish?
and this:
nice explain about the hb100
Here’s another question: Can we hack a radar detector into an Othernet receiver? Radar detectors operate at Ku-band. These are linearly polarized front ends with aperture that looks larger than the bare LNBs. I’m assuming radar detectors have down converters in them.
This tangent is probably best as a separate thread.
If I recall the police radar guns are a crappy gunn diode rig.
I think same thing as the HB100s inverted phase beating the gunn diode oscillator vs LNA’ed return and get a difference as an audio range IF signal which is ready to use by the electronics. The tuning the cops do is probably still just shooting a reference tuning fork and dialing in the reading it is supposed to return.
You could probably make a way over the top radar detector with ridiculous range from a LNA.
I would be more interested though in making a radar altimeter(rangefinder), Ka band gunn diode source and a LNA receiver. I think I have some schematics for an idea I wanted to strap onto a high wing Cessna’s wing supports but never got around to making.
I was talking with an air force guy a few years ago, apparently the newer stealth fighter/bomber radars are so QRP in most modes that they could be operated unlicensed per FCC regs, they make up for the low power by using spread spectrum and using multi-sampling, long over time comparison analysis, and other very advanced DSP to see a signal way below the noise floor.
The output from the doppler sensors is audio. Its very simple with LO and amp and on the TX side and LNA and mixer on RX. doppler is tapped off as audio direct from the mixer. For direction it has to be quadrature mixer. No need for a Gunn diode these days and there are loads of commercial cheap doppler boards available. Some of the better ones are at 24G but work on the same principle.
I designed one many years ago for commercial alarms but we pulsed it so the average current a few hundred microamps. if the data rate is low (or audio) then you could use the same principle to save DC power and make a very low power solution.