The Dish Mount and Controller Forum had us Spinning!

Richard VK7ZBX's impressive 1.8m mobile dish.

Richard VK7ZBX’s impressive 1.8m mobile dish.

We had a great roll up to our forum with many people coming along with show and tell.

Notable there was a large 1.8m AZ/EL dish that was trailer mounted that Richard VK7ZBX brought along – more on that later.

The night was all about sharing people’s experiences. We started with Rex VK7MO who took us on a picture journey of his adventures in dish mounts starting with 1296 and working through each iteration of the mounts and heading into the 10 & 24GHz telescope mounts with milling machine table used for accurate azimuth adjustment. Rex’s show and tell included the azimuth and elevation measuring devices. Thanks Rex.

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AMSAT-VK National Net December 2016

The last AMSAT-VK national radio net was held tonight with VK7LXX and VK7BEN participating via Echolink. They were greeted by regulars Judy VK2TJU, Bob VK2AOR and George VK2WEL.

Tonight’s net saw discussion about the new Chinese satellite being launched on December 26 with the designation BY70-1. The 2U Cubesat will have a V/U FM transponder with an uplink frequency of 145.920 MHz and a downlink frequency of 436.200 MHz. Further information can be found on the AMSAT NA Website.

Additional activity discussion centred around SO-50 operation and techniques to access it. Scott filled the group in with his progress in making a SatNOG base station and Ben discussing the recent attempts being made at the REAST clubrooms by Justin VK7TW and Danny VK7HDM.

Thanks to Judy for hosting the national net, and we will do it all again in February 2017!