I ran a quick test in Fusion360 to look at the stresses around holes in a 1 metre aluminium boom with a large hole in the top and a cross-hole, with one end of the boom fixed and 200N on the other end. Just testing the facility to see how it works.
I’ve been trying out some ideas for a feedhorn that uses the dielectric-horn POTY approach with a 22mm circular guide for 10GHz suspended in the mouth of a 9cm horn. Quick video of the idea shows some issues, like it only works with the coax feed to the 10GHz horn when it is cross-polarized. Needs a lot more thought, but I needed to do this sketch to get it clear in my head. The outer tube is almost transparent in this rendering. It is 180mm long and 68mm OD. The open end of the 22mm tube will have an HB9PZK dielectric lens and the 68mm tube will have a thin dielectric plastic disk with a hole to support the 22mm tube. Hopeless like this though because of the cross-polarisation issue. More thought needed.
I needed a spider to support long workpieces out of the back of the headstock spindle. I had a bit of EN8 round bar so I used that. Bored to 42mm to match the spindle ID, then counterbored to fit the spindle OD. I used a 1mm slitting saw to form a clamp and milled out pockets for a couple of M3 caphead bolts. Bored out a hole in the end of three M8 cap bolts and made brass inserts. Works a treat.
This project is being implemented by the Goole Radio and Electronics Society. The antenna uses the modified PA0RDT Mini-Whip design. The PCB and component kit was put together as a kit by the late Dave Powis G4HUP and now sold by the UK Radio Astronomy Association. The kit only includes the electronics. I decided to make a proper enclosure, couplers and fittings to make a decent mechanical solution.
I made up another batch of my variant of the VK3CV model choked Chaparral®-style feedhorns. Chokes are 7mm diameter, bore is 2mm, Body is 30.75 x 15mm, with an adjustable 4mm diameter coupling cavity. These are made from brass.
Grooves are 0.5mm wide by 0.75mm deep, made with a toolpost spindle at 14,000 rpm using a two-flute carbide end mill in the lathe at 8rpm
A local ham asked me to make up some small heatspreaders for a 5.7GHz SSPA driver section. I used some offcuts of C110 free-machining copper.
M2.5 tapped holes for SMA 4-hole sockets in and out.
I was asked to make up some quick-detach coupling tubes to allow two 24GHz round flanges to be clamped together. I made a tube with a 22mm x 0.75mm thread outside and broached a keyway slot, then made a brass key to fit and fixed it with Loctite. So far I’ve only made up one of the clamp rings, I’m waiting for a real example to turn up so I can get the tolerances exactly right. All its fine so far though.
Following the design in http://www.g4dbn.uk/?p=1333 I made up a trial version in brass. Anti-cocking flange, adjustable barrel and the standard sized coupler for a VK3CV design Silicon Radar 122GHz board.
This version has round 2.00mm waveguide.
Willi HB9PZK modelled a Rexolite lens for a “POTY” dual-band patch antenna to use on the 10GHz downlink from the QO-100 amateur satellite. https://rfantennas.wordpress.com/author/hb9pzk/
The design is a joy to make when compared with the dual-taper versions. I have some one-inch Rexolite 1422 round bar, so I’ve been making a few of these lenses to replace the lossy Nylon versions that some folks are using. Rexolite is a cross-linked polystyrene, which machines rather like plexiglas. It has a tan-delta around 0.0004 and almost zero water absorption.
Willi’s design has a stepped transition to the read. This latest batch is to fit UK 22mm plumbing pipe with a nominal wall thickness of 0.9mm and an inside bore of 20.2mm instead of the standard 20.0 bore.
Nice simple job squaring, facing, drilling, tapping and slotting some free-machining C111 copper for an oversized heatspreader for a W6PQL MRF3750 600W PA board. 4 x 5 x 0.5 inch thick. I have quite a number of these to machine up now. C111 is such a contrast from horribly gummy C101
