I am grateful to the help of John Berman on this project – I based the arrangement at LRO on his design. It uses Spectrum Lab Spectrum Analyser software, and…
For a VLF receiving loop, the exact wire length is usually far less critical than people expect. At VLF (about 3–30 kHz): So you are not building a resonant half-wave…
Success with detection! Bits and pieces arrived to make new aerial – and attached are test screenshots from Spectrum Lab – 6 stations seen clearly. This time, for some reason,…
Note this post doesn’t look any question about whether the paint affects signal reception. It only addresses whether the paint will work with a paint sprayer. **Hammerite** paint can be…
This question is relevant to considering how close two observers need to be to each other in order to observe the same muon cascades, and hence obtain similar muon detections/have…
This is one of those things that sounds boring until it suddenly explains all your noise problems. Alright — let’s break it down in human terms. 🎙️ Unbalanced microphone input…
The answer isn’t “magic DSP.” It’s architecture. And a bit of ruthless engineering discipline. Modern SDRs don’t actually have “less noise” in the physics sense — they have more stable,…
Absolute workhorse of RF switching. WHAT IS A PIN DIODE? A PIN diode is a semiconductor diode with three layers: The middle layer is a thick, undoped (intrinsic) region. That…
WHAT IS A DICKE SWITCH? A Dicke switch is a rapid RF switch used in radio astronomy to reduce receiver gain drift. It switches quickly between: This technique was invented…
Professional radio astronomy dishes are engineered for electrical reflectivity, structural rigidity, thermal stability, and low weight. The exact construction depends on frequency range (long-wavelength vs millimetre work), but most large…
Admin