Decades ago I had a nice setup with a QuadHelix antenna on my roof, with a LNA, powered by voltage over the RG-8 coax, and a small broadband receiver (Dartcomm, I think) that was imported from UK to give me a signal to get direct images from the satellite.
Of course tremendous advances have been made, and the data are easily available from Univ of Wisconsin, Madison, Space Science and Engineering Center, but I'd still like to listen once in awhile.
Does anyone know if there was a 'standard' for the voltage to send up the coax to have an LNA work (if it still does), like 5v or 12v? The Dartcomm had a built in feature to send power up the coax, but I cannot find the little receiver any more, but it has to be here somewhere....
I'd like to power it up, do a NOAA prediction as to when it might pass, and feed the signal to a regular scanner on the frequency to see if I an hear anything.
If that works, I understand that there are programs for the SDR dongles that will allow one to get the pictures and just view them on the screen.
The access up to where the antenna is and the LNA is through my roof in my garage, and then into a crawl space that is holding up some solar panels, and it was a bit of a trek when I was 30 years younger, so to scamper up and poke around a few trips is nearly out of the question now with my age, weight, arthritis and threats from my wife to shoot me if I try going up there just to look around. So the first step is the power it up and listen as far as I can tell.
Thanks for any thoughts Dale
PS, is anyone here listening to the satellites? I used to be able to hear them just with my ham rig in the car if I knew passage time and it was a near overhead pass.
