Optical communications

Optical RX

Until my stroke in 2013, one of my joys was building and testing optical communications gear. Although I had a successful line-of site speech contact, my "thing" was weak signal communication over the horizon.

Even without any visible signals in the sky I was able to detect my beacon from home on 481THz (red optical) way over the horizon, even though it was firing through double glazing. Had I been able to carry on, there were so many things I wanted to try including higher powerLEDs, further distances and a better tripod.

Sadly, these days I am too wobbly to do this portable work. As all the gear can be built and tested in the "back of a garage" with simple test gear, this could appeal to those interested in serious, but low cost, experimentation. Over the horizon optical work could do with attention.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/optical