There are many antennas around for working low earth orbit satellites. The usual configuration is a crossed yagis, one for 2m and the other for 70cm. They are not cheap and talking to some ops they are heavy to hold for long periods.

I wanted to make my own dual band antenna. After a web search I came across this page on the M1GEO web site. It is very cheap to build and does not require special tools and is very light weight – just 345gms! The design uses a 2m Moxon and elements for 70cms. The original article is here.

M1GEO/G8OCV changed the measurements slightly to improve the SWR so I followed their design. I used 21mm pine dowel/rod for the boom.

The total build took about 3 hours and cost around £5. The SWR is 1.4:1 on 2M and 1.1:1 on 70cms after adjusting the gap between the 2 elements of the 2m Moxon antenna.

The material used for the elements is 3.2mm aluminium welding wire, it MUST be 1000mm long. Mine turned out to be 900mm so the longest Moxon element required a joint.

The antenna with cable weighs just 345gms!

Initial tests were very good with several passes heard at good strength including packet data from the ISS. Now I just need to program the Boafeng GT-3 for each satellite.

The total cost of my LEO ground station is less than £20 that is a lot of fun for very little cash!