GPSDO ⁽³⁾

Some days ago the diminutive DX Patrol GPSDO (v3, multiple outputs) would quite often lose PPS and coordinates. At first I thought it was the GPS signal as it is still only using one of those little puck type antennas stuck to the window. On recommendation I placed this on a metal sheet but the problem persisted. Also, checking the antenna against other GPSDOs showed it worked fine. I plugged the USB into a PC to see if there was any errors and for the duration of that the device functioned perfectly with no dropouts. This was with both the 12V supply and the 5V from the USB powering the device. Long story short it transpires that when the GPSDO is running from the 12V shack supply it keeps dropping out. The supply is fine. When just powerd from USB it works fine. So that's the way it has been left now. It has the advantage that I can see the data output but the annoyance that the USB socket is on the front - however, a down bend USB adapter plus a down bend cable neatly brings the USB lead back under the GPSDO. As I understand it a…

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…

The latest addition to the shack is this diminutive DX Patrol GPSDO v.3 that arrived today from the Amsat UK shop. I was looking for a general 10MHz source to replace the one I built from a kit that is rather deaf and came across the DX Patrol ones. At first I found one that was set to 10MHz with four outputs but fortunately the Amsat shop sells one with four independently configurable outputs. The advantage of that is I can use one of them for the QO100 setup (assuming I ever get that finished!) as well as having a general 10MHz output. Frequencies can be set from a built-in web front end and this is accessed directly via a built-in AP plus an in-screen QR code (handy!). Once connected you can then use the web interface to connect the GPSDO to your own wifi, which is what I have done. One of the displays tells you what IP address it has which is also handy when trying to find it. I have yet to connect the NMEA output to anything - the documentation details this and also the device can function as an NTP server so I might use…