RTOP March 2026 - Comments on Solar Radio Flux Reference and Dish Mounting

[Robert Meade]

Great stuff at RTOP today.

Steve's stuff was really interesting on the transit cal. Interesting approach using the sunspot number to guess the solar flux, there are actually solar observatories that measure the radio flux at a number of different frequencies, one of them being hydrogen line-ish at 1.4 gigahertz, and they report this when the Sun goes over their location at highest elevation (culmination), so local solar noon. This data is aggregated as a function of time over many days and also on that specific day and available via the NOAA NCEI website page for Noon Solar Radio Flux. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/space-weather/legacy-data/solar-radio-datasets

For Pablo's presentation, I Did notice that a mounting bracket was not included in the sub $600 RA/DEC pointing and tracking mount solution with discovery dish. I offer a COTS one of those for sale for any CG5 Dovetail telescope mount. Folks should be able to find it by searching for CG5 Dovetail Adapter for Discovery Dish. I think the EMI/EMC mitigation is going to be the biggest challenge though as folks mentioned. 

- Robert

[Stephen Arbogast]

I  am still  waiting  for  Kracken RF's   Az/El  weather  proof motor control  for   Discovery Dish ...  Has any one heard any news?

[Stephen Arbogast]

Why not   a  Cassegrain  antenna ?

See  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassegrain_antenna

I   would  climb into  the barrel  and adjust the amplifiers  instead of  rope  climbing ....

[fasleitung3]

While Cassegrain antennas are popular at high frequencies such as 10 GHz, they are impractical at L-band. The secondary reflector gets fairly large (and therefore heavy) and so does the feed horn.

Due to the size of the sub-reflector there is also substantial apterture blocking.

Wolfgang

[Robert Meade]

Check the recent rtl-sdr blog post for discovery drive status. They still haven't started the crowd supply campaign last I checked. 

--
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers" group.
To post to this group, send email to sara...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
sara-list-...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/sara-list?hl=en
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sara-list+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sara-list/df73c23c79173cf43cfc159cf0f511ff72da64c1.camel%40googlemail.com.

[Ayushman Tripathi]

Hi Stephen,

I haven't seen any updates regarding the Discovery Drive. I also came across a DiSEqC H to H motor for small dishes, however, it appears to provide azimuth control only (no elevation adjustment) and requires a separate controller. I’m not sure how useful this would be for our application.

[Alex P]

IF you attach the unit to the top of a post, you will have a useful Elevation Axis Controller for HLine Drift Scans.

just align N-S 

Alex

[Ayushman Tripathi]

Hi Alex,

Nice idea! Have you tried this DiSEqC H to H motor before? I’m curious how precise it is.

Thanks

Sent from my iPhone

On 3 Mar 2026, at 16:48, 'Alex P' via Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers <sara...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



IF you attach the unit to the top of a post, you will have a useful Elevation Axis Controller for HLine Drift Scans.

just align N-S 

<ElevationController.jpg>

Alex

On Tuesday, March 3, 2026 at 6:10:23 AM UTC-5 Ayushman Tripathi wrote:

Hi Stephen,

I haven't seen any updates regarding the Discovery Drive. I also came across a DiSEqC H to H motor for small dishes, however, it appears to provide azimuth control only (no elevation adjustment) and requires a separate controller. I’m not sure how useful this would be for our application.

--
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers" group.
To post to this group, send email to sara...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
sara-list-...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/sara-list?hl=en
---

You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/sara-list/jPVpTV_yG5w/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to sara-list+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sara-list/df2a6e37-88b1-4f77-ad68-65b12a315bb2n%40googlegroups.com.

<ElevationController.jpg>

[b alex pettit jr]

Hello Ayushman,

I have all  portable systems that I set up in the back yard using inexpensive equatorial mounts and manually position the elevation. 

I estimate I have repeatability of +-3 degrees .. good enough for small dish wide beamwidth systems

Alex