10GHz moon tracking tests

It’s been cold and bright for the last few days with good moon conditions so I setup the slew drive and dish outside to test moon tracking with the KN3G controller.

The first day was a bit frustrating. It took me a long time to get the dish pointed accurately at the sun and after calibrating azimuth and elevation I kept using the EEPROM Init button instead of the new EEPROM Save button that I had added. Eventually I got things working correctly and managed to track the moon for a while, receiving the DL0SHF beacon between -7dB and -13dB. A problem with my laptop charger meant that I had to stop tests earlier than planned.

Two days later I started with some basic azimuth and elevation tests to make sure that the ‘degree per pulse’ settings were correct. The moon was clearly visible and shortly after starting moon tracking I immediately saw the trace from DL0SHF. I made some minor adjustments to get the strongest trace and copied the beacon consistently @ -9dB for 45 minutes. A bit later on I copied Eric, ON5TA @ -14dB and Julian, G4RFR @ -6dB.

Next stage will be to get the PA mounted on the feed tray and try to complete a few QSO’s.