Thoughts on Building an Amateur 6.668 GHz Methanol Maser Receiver
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I am exploring the possibility of building a receiver to observe the 6.668519 GHz Class II methanol maser line using amateur radio astronomy equipment. The 6.7 GHz methanol line is…
Changing voltage output from cheap OCXOs output – natively produce 5V TTL, while the HackRF and other SDRs like the Airspy R2 expect a 3.3V clock
THE FOLLOWING COMES WITH NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. TRY THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK – THERE IS A RISK OF DAMAGE TO YOUR EQUIPMENT BY COPYING THE EXPERIENCES DISCUSSED…
How could a 9KHz-8GHz RF Digital Step Attenuator be used to reduce the gain on a test signal at 1420 Mhz being produced by a NanoVNA, and used to test a hydrogen line radio telescope? Currently the test signal overloads the SAWBird on the radio telescope.
For your application, this type of digital attenuator is actually a very useful addition to your radio astronomy test setup. If you are using the NanoVNA as a signal source…
What can amateur radio astronomers potentially “see” when using radio to observe the Bubble Nebula?
The Bubble Nebula is NGC 7635 in Cassiopeia (often discussed in amateur circles because it’s an H II/stellar-wind bubble with associated cool gas). For radio observing, the key idea is that…
Best frequencies for amateur observations of masers by Eduard Mol 13 July 2026
Hi Andrew, That’s a question I have been trying to answer for a few years. I will try to summarise what I’ve learned about this below… The OH masers at…
What is cheapest way to generate 22 GHz test signal to test my 22 GHz LNB for masers?
For testing a 22 GHz LNB, you don’t necessarily need a laboratory-grade signal generator. The cheapest options are: If your goal is simply to confirm that your LNB and receiver…
Trimble and Leo Bodnar external RF clocks: Do they produce sine wave or square wave outputs?
TRIMBLE EXTERNAL CLOCKS: It depends on the specific Trimble device. For Trimble GPS-disciplined oscillators (GPSDOs) commonly used as 10 MHz frequency references: If you mean one of the surplus Trimble…
In GNU Radio, can I use a variable to pass data into a Python script into a self-written module?
Yes. In fact, that’s the normal way to parameterize a custom Python block in GNU Radio. There are several ways to do it: 1. Pass a GNU Radio variable as…
I am trying to heat up edge of large piece metal sufficiently to solder it. Heat from normal soldering iron just gets conducted away. What do I use?
For soldering the edge of a large piece of metal, the problem is its thermal mass: it conducts heat away faster than a normal soldering iron (typically 25–80 W) can…
Scaling hydrogen horn elements
The SETI League provides a set of dimensions to build a hydrogen horn. This has two components – the waveguide element at the far end which must have specific dimensions…