Radio and rails...

This part was going to be about the full transmission path but I am still getting the POTY and LDF4-50A line ready. Instead, I wanted to experiment with the SG Labs 13cm transverter. For the test the FT818 was dusted off and set to 432MHz FM so it would give a constant output when keyes. This fed the transverter, the output of which was put into a dummy load via a 20dB directional coupler that in turn fed a frequency counter. The output was giving 2,404MHz and was nicely stable over a couple of hours (not keyed all the time of course). When finished the transverter will be locked to a 10MHz reference from a GPSDO. The output power was around 18mW, again via the directional coupler, so about 1.8W. The FT818 was not set to full power and the PA, when finally installed has a maximum input of 250mW so some attenuation is still needed. Ok, so I have a full receive path for both transponders, I can decode FT8, hear SSB and see DATV. And I am now happy that I will be able to transmit once the PA and POTY are all in place. My next thoughts…

The reason I moved the dish was, as explained in part 1 partyl due to me wanting to send and receive DATV. Having sorted out the receive parts for the narrowband transponder the next step was to set up to receive the wideband one. the LNB was originally a 4-port device which has been modified to take an external 25MHz sinewave input on one of the ports thus leaving three free. I ran three runs of RG59 from the shack, one for the 25MHz feed and two for reception. So it was relatively easy to use the second of these to receive DATV. I already had a Winterhill DATV receiver (see https://wiki.batc.org.uk/WinterHill_Receiver_Project ) and documentation for this shows how to configure it for QO100 use using two of its inputs, leaving the other two free for other purposes. A splitter combines the two 'top' ports, feeding power from the first port. With the Winterhill set up to send 18V it flips that LNB receiver to the right polarisation for the wideband transponder. QED. And it just works. I did have to fiddle with settings because when I got the Winterhill I experimented with remote access so when turned on it…

Finally I had a chance to set up the QO100 dish on the side of the house. It was originally behind the harage at ground level which was not ideal as it was both a head-hitting hazard and an RF hazard, especially as I eventually want to be able to send not only SSB but also DATV which requires a higher power output than the 4W I had originally. I also wanted to copy the special GB2RS broadcast on QO100 which was scheduled for the 28th September, 2025. So, out with the scaffolding and up with the dish. That was the easy part. The disk elevation was already set so all I needed to do was point it in the right direction azimuth-wise. I nearly got that right using a theodolite app on the phone so with the aid of all relevant hardware I tuned it to max, for now anyway. It was rather amusing to have to set up a laptop and power supplies on the scaffolding as the last time I did that was at ground level. Cables came next - three runs of RG59, each around 12 metres back to the shack. These were very fiddly but…

My 'pigate' Pi is no more. Well, it still exists, but has been decommissioned. It has a story going back a few years. It began life as one of thre Pi systems in the blue metal box that has just been scrapped but was later moved to its own 3D printed box. It ran a varying number of packages, taking over the ADBS logger that was on a Pi in the loft and also running Hamclock and a decoder for our weather station. But recently the PoE HAT fan has been considerably annoying and Hamclock always seemed to push the load up. Enter a new (old) fanless PC. This is an eBay purchase, a Wyse 5060 made by Dell and arrived today. And it has a story of its own! First off it was sold as used with an un-activated Windows 10 on board but it appears to be new due to the packaging. The first step for this PC was to install Lubuntu 24.04 LTS but on powering it up it has a BIOS password set. Fortunately the password is known and available via the Web. It turns out the Wyse 5060 is a thin client aimed at having…

For some time now my pi-star node was in a fairly large blue box. Originaly this box had three Pi systems plus a 5V PSU but over the months two of those systems were either shut down or relocated to their own 3D printed box and powered via a PoE HAT. So the blue box, measuring some 240x110x190mm was pretty much empty. Since I built a M17 hotspot out of a Pi and a Nextion screen I found a 3D printable box specifically for the 3.2" Nextion. So I printed this and a second one for pi-star. This has saved quite a bit of shelf space. The case is not fully ideal because in the case of the pi-star node the Nextion is connected via a USB to TTL converter which sticks outside the case. The M17 node has a Zumspot USB radio which again sticks out the side. But it will make a good basis for designing a wider box that will encompass the USB bits.