Updates on progress

Hey everybody,

I haven't been able to acquire funds to complete the radio telescope, because of being laid off my job last December. However, it looks as if I am going to get a new, better paying one soon (have an interview with a tech support company this Monday). I have to give some money to my family for awhile to pay off some of our debts (like the mortgage), but after a couple of months I will be back to constructing.

At first I'm going to just complete this antenna and source test, but I have the next step I have decided that I will take. I am going to build an interferometer, with an eight meter or so East-West baseline (across our property). This will drastically improve the mapping resolution and add some gain. The interferometer will be the multiplying type, with A/D conversion for each receiver and correlated by a Linux computer. The resultant data will be sent to my laptop for, filtering, Fourier transforming (to make the map), and after the scans are completed contour mapping. The resolution will be about two degrees or so, which will make for a useful (not a novelty) diffuse source map. Each antenna will have a clear view of the meridian line from 90 degrees north to about 10 degrees south, so I'll have no problems getting the full sky map.

After this I plan to do something pretty daring, if I can get enough people to participate. Very Long Baseline Interferometry, or VLBI. Its still in the conceptual phase, but I will start drafting after the eight meter interferometer is completed (that will get me some hands on experience with mapping interferometry).

Anyway, hope to get started soon here!

Cheers,

KM.