The following article was originally presented at a Project
OSCAR seminar on September 30th, 1990. AMSAT-UK printed an
abridged version of this presentation in their OSCAR News,
Number 88, April 1991. The original presentation has been
reedited and updated for AMSAT’s Web page. Years of home brewing
has taught me how to do and not to do a lot of things properly.
This experience, along with reading AMSAT- NA, AMSAT-UK and ARRL
publications (Note 1) has taught me how to build my projects
better. Here are some tips I learned that may be of help with
the most important part of an amateur radio satellite station,
the antenna systems. Low Cost Satellite Antennas Materials to
build satellite antennas can sometimes be found among junk most
people would throw away. An old broken-off car radio antenna I
found lying in the street became the vertical element of a two
meter 5/8 wave groundplane for mode A and T. Four wire clothes
hangers became the radials. Likewise all the remaining
components were “salvaged” from other