An Antenna That Really Cooks–Really

[9A4OV] set up a receiver using the HackRF board and an LNA that can receive the NOAA 19 satellite. Of course, a receiver needs an antenna, and he made one using a cooking pot. The antenna isn’t ideal – at least indoors – but it does work. He’s hoping to tweak it to get better reception. You can see videos of the antenna and the resulting reception, below.

The satellite is sending High-Resolution Picture Transmission (HRPT) data which provides a higher image quality than Automatic Picture Transmission (APT). APT is at 137 MHz, but HRPT is at 1698 MHz and typically requires a better receiver and antenna system.

If you decide to make a pot antenna yourself, we’d be careful drilling through non-stick finishes. Polymer fume fever requires the PTFE to heat to almost 600 degrees, so probably light machining isn’t going to cause a problem, but then again, why take a chance? Work in ventilation and protect yourself from inhaling the dust.

Usually, satellite rigs are a bit more complex. On the other hand, the pot antenna isn’t decoding images yet, either. We’ve seen a variety of APT projects in the past. Everyone’s seen antennas made from Pringles cans. We’ve even seen them made out of spoons and Tupperware, so we guess a pot isn’t all that surprising.

19 thoughts on “An Antenna That Really Cooks–Really

  1. A clickbait title that…. Really is clickbait-really.
    Though great exercise in antenna design.

    Same question as SQ2KTN above:
    Is the RTL-SDR capable?

    I got my brother from technophobe to techno-freak and he has an RTL-receiver amongst other gadgets.

      1. Noooopppppeeee. That title was served-up by Al. He doesn’t do it too frequently, but every once and a while they crop up.
        Some people have a beef with his choice of titles.
        Occasionally, people scoff at them. He’s a bit of a nut, but at least he isn’t loafing around like some of us.
        Please, don’t get too salty over this.

      1. I once heard that the scoops for fryers you buy at Asian supply stores are parabolic. of course you need a dense mesh so instead you could just create your own, there are many tricks to achieve a parabolic shape you can find online.

    1. Seriously, I have machined my fair share of Teflon and never had it get even warm. I’m not talking about some piddely BS either, I’m talking high surface speeds, big depths of cut and heavy feeds.

      Even it you’re drilling metal coated with it would never get hot enough to decompose unless you are doing something wrong. If you are generating that much heat you need to back off the RPM and sharpen your tool.

      Unless you’re doing something like Flo-Drilling nothing should be getting that hot.

  2. Pretty nice, cheap antenna — but I wish I had more details on the turnstile and tracker that the pot is sitting on. For HRPT, a good tracker is the key to the whole operation (assuming a decent radio, LNA, and downconverter, which I already have). Otherwise, my J-Pole can do pretty well for just APT.

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