PROJECT IDEAS

This page contains short summaries of ideas for projects. The purpose of this page is to list some ideas, not give a detailed project description or tutorial. Any ideas are welcome. More detailed project descriptions and articles are invited for publication on UKARANet.

Idea 1: Use an unmodified television set as a radio telescope:
By connecting a simple detector to the video output on the SCART plug of a TV, it should be possible to detect a rise in the noise floor of the TV when pointing a largish TV antenna at the sun.

Idea 2: Use a satellite TV dish and LNB as a radio telescope:
A simple detector connected to the output of the LNB on a satellite TV dish should detect noise from the sun, moon and some of the brightest radio sources. This will also work for C-band systems.

Idea 3: Use an old shortwave radio to detect Jupiter:
This should be simple enough. Connect the antenna and ground of the receiver to one of the antennas described in several articles on Jupiter (see the UKARANet SEARCH page). This should work if your antenna is connected correctly, the receiver can reliably tune to between 20MHz and 30MHz and there is not too much interference. The output can be taped.

Idea 4: Make a simple interferometer:
At VHF and higher frequencies (TV, satellite TV, etc), a simple interferometer system can be assembled by simply connecting the outputs of two antennas, LNAs or LNBs together and feeding that to a detector. Space the antennas as far as possible on an East-West line and point them at the point in the sky where the sun will pass at midday. If the system works, the output of the detector will fluctuate as the sun moves through the interferometer's 'interference fringes'.