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
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.
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| Mount done - kind of beefy, but we get wind here in Montana. |
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| I can lift and mount the dish to the slew drive in one move. |
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| Septum feed mount. Black is the new melted in 3D printing. |