Ford F150 Mobile

CJU On Steroids

My secret weapon for working the LEO's from my mobile. Since I shot this photo, I have cleaned up the wiring and the connector for the 12 volt supply to the preamplifier. This tiny CJU antenna design from the pages of QST works especially well when mounted directly to a handheld receiver. However, when using the CJU antenna with a length of coax connected to my Yaesu FT-817ND, I noticed some loss in the signal. To rectify the problem, I mounted a Advanced Receiver Research GaAsFET preamplifier on the antenna with included handle. Now, I can work the satellites right on the horizon and the modified antenna looks kinda cool besides!

That is a Advanced-Receiver-Research preamplifier built in to this neat little satellite antenna that I built recently. I own a number of these GaAsFET preamplifiers and love them. The GaAsFET type of preamplifier offers the best noise figure (N.F.) and therefore the best sensitivity of the various types. It also has the most gain and best immunity to overload. Looking at the 1 dB compression (1 dB comp.) characteristics, the GaAsFET is 12 dB better than the DGFET type and 32 dB better than the low noise bipolar. After trying the other types of preamplifiers, I now use GaAsFET preamplifiers exclusively.

http://va6bc.no-ip.com/jerry_pix/awards/naiss/iss_qsl.htm

http://va6bc.no-ip.com/jerry_pix/qrp_special.htm