[Moon-net] measuring sunnoise

[Kenny Heernaert]

Hello all , 

This morning I tried to make some sunnoise measurements , as this is my first attempt to 
measure it I would like to share my measured values to see if they are correct or not . 

The setup : 

The 1st preamp is a low noise one with 23dB gain , the attenuators have been removed and the signal is fed into a second low noise preamp (same as the 1st preamp) with 22dB gain . 
Total gain is 55dB without the cableloss from the tower into the shack as this is barely 1dB including connector loss . A HP432 power meter is used as readout with a bandpass for 144MHz.

For reference I pointed the array up towards the could sky , the VK3UM EME planner software was used to prevent pointing to a galactic noise source . 

When pointing to the sun I measured about 2dB more noise with often a rapid increase to 3-4dB . Perhaps the rapid increase was due a local repeater or ham going on the air , maybe next measurements should be done with the spectrum analyzer in parallell with the power meter to avoid errors of 2m signals that are being picked up ? 

As second noise source is used cassiopeia A , this was a 4dB increse compared to the could sky. When lowering the elevation the noise stayed the same for almost more then 15°lower as cassiopeia . 

Are my values correct ? Is my way of measuring correct ? Can I improve it? 

I would be glad to receive some comments .

Best regards,
Kenny - ON4DPX