Hi all! New here. I became familiar with SatNOGS at Hamvention but sort of tucked it into the back of my mind as I didn’t have the time, space, 3D printer, etc to consider building a directional station. The TAPR conference video got me interested in playing around with the idea of a non-rotator station with stuff I had laying around.
For now I have an Arrow dual-band satellite yagi in my attic. It’s literally wire tied to a scrap piece of tubing and leaning against a post. I’ve removed some elements to make it less directional. It’s actually working quite a bit better than I would have expected, but as you can imagine some passes are better than others.
I have a ton of magnet wire scrap from a place the wife used to work, appears to be aluminum conductor roughly equivalent of 12 or 10 gauge wire. It bends and holds form quite well. I also have plenty of 50 ohm coax in various types and a bunch of RG-6 (75 ohm). I’ve been researching antennas to build to replace the Arrow, using materials on hand as I’m trying to avoid going out much.
It looks like a Moxon seems to be a good choice with the on-hand materials, no special impedance coax needed outside of what I already have, and seems more forgiving of less than perfect dimensions than other designs. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, or other antenna projects I might be missing. I’ve looked into QFH, but there’s a lot of information out there and it seems like it would be more difficult to get right.