Monitoring Hydrogen Line Frequncies

[riverrat373]

I have an Icom R7000 receiver that I would like to use to monitor the hydrogen line frequencies after I build the necessary antenna. I know that I need a LNA (preferably with filters for local noise?). Can I hook-up the feedline directly to the receiver without any other devices? Can I then connect the receiver directly to the audio input of my computer to analyze the signals using software available online or would I need a converter of some type between the receiver and the computer to digitize the audio signal first.

 

[k7ng]

There isn't all that much interference you need to filter at 1420 MHz; there is a 'window' that is protected from other use specifically because of the radio astronomy interest in that range. Whether or not you can afford a suitable LNA or not might be an issue to consider. I trust you've done more than a little reading on the intricacies of hydrogen-line radio astronomy? It isn't a simple or straightforward activity.

 

[prcguy]

A friend of mine was going to look into Hydrogen Line reception and I set aside a few goodies for him. This LNA is really high level and can be easily tuned to 1420Mhz. It think it had about 18dB gain and a pretty low NF. The filters shown are great for this covering 1400 to 1440MHz with .6dB insertion loss and really good skirts. All this came off Ebay for about $50.

The little bit of reading I've done on Hydrogen Line reception wants a lot of antenna gain, like 10dB may not even get you into the party. I've also read around 30dB preamp gain is desirable with a super low noise figure like sub .5dB and with that much gain you want a good preselector filter in front of it.