Jamesburg Earthstation California

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Jamesburg EarthstationCalifornia
Presented by Jim Moss August 2008
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Jamesburg Earthstation
AD6IW
1296 MHz
N9JIM
15 APR 2007
0100z
559
CW
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In the beginning
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Intelsat links
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Notes

• Built in 1968 in about 6 months by Philco Ford
  for the lunar landing
• Comsat, and then ATT used the dish for Intelsat
  program
• Cassegrain dish
• Special surface designs to gain an additional 1dB
• C-band 56dB gain
• 1st dish of this series was the Telespazio dish
  in Fucino, Italy

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The New Beginning Fall 2006
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Status

• All the RF equipment was gone
• Cables were cut
• Locked in up safety position
• But we had
• Access to a few former Jamesburg employees
• Blueprints of the initial construction
• Pat working angles with Vertex others
• Some very motivated Hams
• Jim, Brian, Goran, Kevin, Rex and others

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Jack Station Engineerwith remote control box
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Just a few more wires!
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Tour
97 foot reflector 11 foot subreflector 80,000 Lbs
of Aluminum 2 thick concrete 2 thick marine
steel Untold yards of heavy concrete
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Main Drive Controller Room
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Azimuth drive system 2 x 20 HP motors, gear box
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Amplifier room, stairs to reflector, elevation
drives
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The Reflector Hatch
Climbing the ladderJim_climb.wmv
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The Subreflector 11 feet across
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The Safety Pin
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How about a jack? PUSH IT!
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Maybe we can pull it out! Note the torch in
upper left corner
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The Safety Pin - Free at last
82 Pounds of stainless steel 6 diameter 1 5
custom twist lever 5 months of consternation
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The Original Feed

• Cast ridged aluminum
• Copper below
• 3-7 GHz
• 6 long

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4 and 6 GHz Feed System
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First 1296 Feed
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2nd 1296 Feed
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Testing 1 2 3

• Is it turned on?
• 2nd Gen Hello?? .............Hello???
• 3rd Gen
• Measure the Sun
• 23dB sun noise with SF 70,
• thats about 3dB better than the old one
• Lets try 10W WOW!
• Lets try 1W.. Its still there
• LETS TRY FM!... OMG

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Contacts
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3rd 1296 feedto replace the borrowed Stanford
feed

• Captain Jim, Team Goran, Kevin, Brian
• Goran got the detailed plans for the circular
  septum feed from OM6AA
• Jim did materials procurement and project
  management
• Jim designed built the horn
• slightly more gain than the previous horn due to
  a slightly larger aperture
• Kevin Jim machined the septum on Kevins
  milling machine in an afternoon
• well.. It was still light when we finished!
• Kevin fabricated the circular back short..
• Wait just a minute till I take off another 1/16.
• Jim built the main circular waveguide
• Saw blades are 7.25!!!!
• Use them as guides on a threaded rod!
• Dont forget to tape them to protect your
  pinkies!
• Jim installed the septum, back short, probes, and
  horn
• Oh they were beautiful probes
• But wait.. Why are they here? GORAN!
• Brian brought over his network analyzer, and
  Goran, Jim, Kevin and Brian tweaked and adjusted
  for a great match on 1296 (and not bad at 1400
  hydrogen line)

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Construction
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Old horn, New horn, Network Analyzer
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Is there any gain?
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In the dish
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Feed Installation

• Anyone hungry? (get it? Feed Installation)
• Captain Jim,
• Team Brian, Kevin, Rex, Goran, Andre
• OMG it fit! Perfectly
• Echoes! jimecho.mp3

G4CCH
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4th 1296 FeedLonger wider is better (more gain)
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144 Feed Installation

• BTW.. While you are up there, fix the 144 feed
  OK?
• OOPS the 144 LNAs broke.
• Fixed for October Contest

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You want me to climb WHERE?
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144 MHz Feed
CW
SSB
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Must haveautomated moon tracking!

• Kevin Rex co-captains
• What is common between Ping Pong writing the
  Vertex PC link?
• Jim found a work around in the controller by
  adjusting an offset voltage.
• Rex built a copy of the controller bought an
  identical Analog IO board.
• Rex got the new Analog IO board working in the
  Vertex controller
• After watching the dish do the Cha Cha a couple
  times, Kevin Rex combined software and tweaked
  it on site to smooth out grinding and whirring
  noises from the gears
• Kevins cool GUI gives you the feel of pointing
  where you want on the moon!

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Main Dish Control
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Vertex Controller
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Whats This?
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Laser Surface Analysis
Michael Brenner from EMS with his theodolite
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1296 CW European EME Contest 2007
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The European EME contest

• Operating
• 51 QSOs 46 mults
• 25 countries, all continents
• (Australia, Brazil, W/VE/KL7, JA, Many EU, ZS6)
• Beat last years winner by 1000s
• Memorable
• Russian Chirpy drifty CW
• Worked TF (Iceland) Expedition
• Lowest ERP contact known 100W 2.5M dish
• ES5PC worked both E and W (and over the horizon!)

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Goran working CW
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Rex up top, Jim monitoring below
Victory at Sunset
JA6AHB.mp3 K2UYH.mp3 K5SO.mp3 KL6M.mp3 VE6TA.mp3 V
K4AFL.mp3
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3400 3456 MHz EME
SSB Echoes
W5LUA
FM echo
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October ARRL EME

• N9JIM , SCV, CM96EK
• Multi-Operator N9JIM, W6BY, N5XSA, KK6MK, AD6IW,
  WD6CDE, WB8VAO, K6KLY
• Band CW/Phone QSOs Digital QSOs Total QSOs
  Mult
• 144 25 86 111
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• 1296 67 4 71
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• Totals 92 90 182
  80__
• Score 1,456,000
• First 25 stations worked in lt25 mins on SSB

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Brian on 1296 with 300w! Goran running 800w on
144.
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Whats Next?

• Dish is still up for sale
• We continue to have access until then
• Looking for a new ham friendly owner
• Future bands?
• 432 we have rigs, no feed or power
• 903 nothing at all
• 2304 we have power, no rigs or feed
• 3456 we have everything, just need dish time
• 5760 we have power feed, no rig
• 10368 we have rigs (lots), power (20w), no feed

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Hello.hello

• Did anyone notice the cover of CQ VHF?

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