Powering small LoRa devices

After having ditched Meshtastic, for now at least, I had a fiddle with two of the LoRa modules with a view to repurposing them. And there they are. The first is a LoRa APRS r/o iGate, listening on 439.9125MHz, and the second is a receiver for radiosondes listening around 400MHz. Nestled under a 70cm ground plane in the shack is, of course a good way to ensure nothing is ever received unless it is very close! However, it is destined for greater things... although at the end of the day it's just me fiddling. The LoRa APRS map is at https://lora.ham-radio-op.net/ The radiosonde one stands a better chance of actually receiving something, especially as it is currently connected to the 70cm big wheel antenna in the loft. See https://sondehub.org/ The plan is to connect these two along with the module running TinyGS to a common antenna currently in the loft. They will be connected using a Crosscountry Wireless multicoupler which is due to arrive in a day or so.

Another new toy, only small this time. This is a 433MHz LoRa transceiver with TinyGS firmware loaded. More about that below. The device has radios built in - WiFi and BLE built in via an ESP32 chip and LoRa via an SX127x transceiver. It comes pre-loaded with software which I did not investigate as I planned to flash it anyway. It can be powered from a supplied connector or via a micro-USB and has an SMA socket on board. There is a wealth of info on the web about these devices and some include GPS capabilities. I got this because I came across the TinyGS project. Quoting directly from their website: TinyGS is an open network of Ground Stations distributed around the world to receive and operate LoRa satellites, weather probes and other flying objects, using cheap and versatile modules. This project is based on ESP32 boards and currently it is compatible with sx126x and sx127x LoRa módules but we plan to support more radio módules in the future. The TinyGS firmware basically does everything. Installation is straightforward provided you have a supported board. The first board I got was a Heltec and sold as V2 but was a V3…

(updated) I finally had all the bits in one place to sort out the power supplies for my QO100 box. I managed to assemble the 'filtered S-band driver/amp' and the 'QO100 5W amp' kits from AMSAT UK and learned a lot about SMDs like (a) I don't like them (!) and (b) I find it far easier, being short sighted to just look up close than use magnifiers. Anyway, the kits both went together as planned and passed the basic test relating to current draw so I was hopeful that I had actually not managed to mess them up. I also had much fun assembling the LMR600 coax with memories of central heating installation! Finally, with a 12V PSU, a 12V to 5V module and as 12V to 24V module from eBay and tie wraps to hold stuff in place I managed to get volts where needed and gingerly turned it all on. The Pluto found the Ethernet, the GPSDO lit up and SDR Console found QO100. Nothing odd in that because it was all working before but is now assembled into a box. On the left (the door) are the two voltage converters and the GPSDO, and on the…