The 1.5 Meter "Cooker" Dish Meets Its Match

 September 18, 2025

Rick, NY1V, also a 1.5M "Cooker" dish owner, and I ran some tests this morning with the 23cm degradation at -1.4db post-perigee. Declination was good, we were both elevated out of ground noise. Not only did we complete in Q65-60C mode, we upped the ante and completed smoothly on Q65-30B. We then pushed the envelope and with a few repeats completed a Q65-15A contact. Talk about being gob-stopped! All this is to say, in a very unscientific way, "The cooker cooks". 

First 1.5M solar cooker to 1.5M solar cooker contact. 

Seeing is believing. Q65-15A.

1.5M Solar Cooker Conversion for EME - Evaluation

September 8, 2025

Having spent the last two moon rises operating around perigee with several stations I have some results for 1.5 Meter "Cooker" dish on the 23cm band. It works quite well, especially after making sure my cables are run away from the mouth of the septum feed and covering the opening at the dish's center with some aluminum HVAC tape.
 

KB2SA (1.9M dish and 900 watts at the feed) was copied from -22 down to an amazing -15 during at least 10 runs. He received me from -23 to -19, while I had about 380 watts at the feed. 

A typical "Cooker" contact. W2LPL and his 2.3M dish. Click on image to expand.

 
Bottom Line - the $100 USD converted Chinese solar cooker dish has enough gain to work a great number of stations on 23cm and above. 

Echo test @ perigee, 380 watts at the OK1DFC "Lite" Septum Feed, AGO preamp.

1.5M Solar Cooker Conversion for EME - Part III

 September 5, 2025

I replaced the melted feed spider with one Paul, W2HRO rushed out to me from New Jersey and got back to the business of testing. I kept the pre-amp in the IC-9700 off for this session.

Today's numbers
Solar Flux Index 172
Cold Sky to Ground 4.05 db  (an improvement over yesterday)
Cold Sky to Sun 6.32 db
Focus 22.5 inches
SWR 1.8:1 

 Now it is time to work some folks and see how it plays station to station!

This septum feed spider stayed cool as a cucumber.

 

Let's get cooking as the moon gets higher!

1.5M Solar Cooker Conversion for EME - Part II

September 3, 2025 

I got the mount finished, split the dish in half so I could stuff it into my Subaru Forester, and headed out to the operating site south of town. After an hour of playing with too many nuts and bolts the dish was back together and the mounted attached. I was even able to lift the dish onto the slew drive in one smooth hoist - it's good to be 6'2" tall!

Preliminary test data

1296.100 Mhz 

Feed OK1DFC "Lite" Septum, designed for 2.4m folding dish
Focus 22.5 inches

Solar Flux 187

Ground to cold sky 2.7db

Cold sky to sun 6.6db

SWR 1.9:1
 

Initial results seem to be roughly on par with my 2.4M folding dish. The focal point on the 1.5M cooker was quite sharp. This septum feed is probably not optimal for the "Cooker", but it's a start. 

One setback - prolonged aiming at the sun started to melt the very black 3D printed spider holding the septum feed in place. Paul, W2HRO had a great KISS suggestion - a piece of white paper in front of the feed would have avoided the issue. I quit for now, I got my data and time to regroup with a glass of iced tea. 

Mount done - kind of beefy, but we get wind here in Montana.

I can lift and mount the dish to the slew drive in one move.

Septum feed mount. Black is the new melted in 3D printing.