Procedure for Making the Itty Bitty Radio Telescope

Equipment Needed:

1 - DirectTV 18-inch satellite dish with LNB and mounts

1 - Channel Master 1004IF

Materials Needed:

From builder supply store:

30" x 30" 3/4" composite board or similar material for base

lazy Susan

8 -1 1/4" sheet metal or wood screws

wood glue or Elmer's glue

Teflon or nylon washers

electrical tape

compass

Terminating resistors, number is dependent on number of LNB on the satellite system. For this dish, 3 were required.

4' coax cable

2' coax cable

1 - 8 AA battery holder

1 - 9-volt battery clip

1 - 0.1 MHz RF Choke

8 AA batteries

Table saw

Straight edge

7/16 socket wrench

Screw drivers, both Phillips and straight

Soldering gun, solder, flux

Wire cutters

Wire striper or knife

Drill motor

Bits of varying sizes

Measuring tape

Hack saw

Making the Base for the Itty Bitty Telescope

The satellite dish should come with a mounting bracket used to attach the dish to a house. You will need to attach this bracket to a base that can turn. This makes pointing the dish easier. The base will need to be substantial so as to prevent the dish from toppling over.

Cut the composite board to 30" by 30". Attach the bottom of the Lazy Suzanne to the center of the composite board. The base was attached by first drilling holes through the plywood into the base of the Lazy Susan. These holes will need to be counter sunk so that the screw heads will not extend beyond the base. Then the base was glued onto the base, which held the base in place while screws were also screwed from the bottom of the base into the bottom of the base of the Lazy Susan.

Attach the top of the Lazy Susan to the base of the Lazy Susan. Pre-drill a hole through the base board and then use a bolt and washer to attach the top of the Lazy Susan. This allows for tightening of the Lazy Susan as needed. (Notice the 8 screws that are counter sunk that attach the base of the Lasy Susan to the baseboard.)

Paint or stain the base if desired.

Procedure for assembling the dish

Your satellite dish should come with the following items: the multi-satellite dish reflector, a mounting bracket used to attach the dish to the house, an arm that attaches the LNB to the dish and the LNB receiver, plus various screws and washers.

You will need to install the terminating resistors on all but one of the LNB outputs. For this dish there were 4 LNB outputs, thus requiring 3 terminating resistors. These will help reduce signal loss.

Insert the 4' coax cable through the LNB arm before attaching it to the LNB.

Attach the LNB to the LNB Arm.

To reduce the height of the dish, the mounting bracket was shortened. The mast was cut off just below where it started to curve, about 11" from the base. Only the lower portion will be used.

Attach the lower portion of the mast to the mounting bracket. Use Teflon washers or nylon washers to help make the mast and the dish glide against each other easily.



Attach the mounting bracket to the top of the Lazy Susan.

Procedure for assembling the power supply

You will need 12 volts of DC power to operate the Channel Master meter. Eight AA will provide the power through a battery holder and 9-volt connector.