The Bullseye LNB for QO-100

It finally arrived in the Netherlands, the most expensive LNB I ever bought. For a whopping  €25 and many weeks of waiting, the Bullseye LNB was mine. Well, nothing to complain about really, I knew how long shipping will take, and, seen reviews on YouTube, the LNB seemed worth the money and the wait, in particular when compared to competing products.

So, the shipment came in, finally. Of course, I waited until after midnight before I finally got the LNB installed in the focus of my downlink dish. You can't do those things in daylight... it just would not be cool... literally, with have a winter wave with temperatures about -9C. 
Anyway, the LNB is installed and was surprisingly easy to find in the spectrum. Well done! Also, for the time being, the LNB appears to be very stable. Again, well done!

If the positive experience holds true, I will be hooking up my FT-736 again. Something I really looked forward to since I first learned about QO-100.

QO-100 Up-Link -- So Many Things Wrong

There are so many things wrong with my up-link feed:

1. RG-6 75 Ohms feed line from a 50 Ohms PA
2. the base of the helix is embedded in hot-glue
3. the material is Zn-plated Cu-wire (Zn corroding)
4. the spacing of the helix is off and narrows towards the end

2.4 GHz up-link helix feed

You are seeing the result of ignorance and tweaking, which resulted in the feature of point 4).

I hooked a nanoVNA2 up to the PA side of the RG-6, then pushed and pulled on various parts of the helix to minimize the SWR. This procedure included the 75 Ohms transmission line of course. Thereby, I improving the SWR from 4.6:1 to 2.4:1.

Next step you probably be to play with a wire-cutter again. As you can see, the helix has 3+3/4 turns, so, there might be room for improvement still.

For the time being, I am pretty happy with my up-link signal anyway.