Conrad G0RUZ's new Amateur Radio Pages

These are my new pages which will be constantly updated. I get lots of visitors but not many comments - PLEASE leave some comments.

I operate exclusively from the club shack of North Wakefield Radio Club G4NOK this is a modern club with active members who are interested in VHF and above as well as HF. Check them out and come down on a Thursday night when I'll be there.

Don't forget to check the other pages such as the EME pages and the WSVUS_SDR page.

Luis and I have had some big changes to deal with and this meant that things went quiet. However I can promise you that we are back on the project now. I have access to lots of nice tools for the job and at last some spare time. Watch this space!

Luis and I have been busy this week and have made some excellent progress. We have chosen all the silicon and discussed in detail the internal digital control lines. We are using a small Altera Cyclone III FPGA to do all the control and a reflock implementation. This requires  86 digital in/outs! Luis estimates that we will only need about 20% of the logic elements in the FPGA so we will have some possibilities for doing clever stuff later. We have chosen high dynamic range amplifiers for the whole signal chain and will have gain control in the IF to ensure optimum gain distribution for a given situation. Each individual band front end will also be optimised and this will be transparent to both the user and Power SDR.

In addition we will have 4 additional sets of in/out on 144 MHz as well as the main in/out – these are for the use of transverters and will be software selectable. We will not populate all these because of the high cost of the connectors but there will be provision on the board to add them should they be required. Automatic selection of the transverters is facilitated in the same way as it was on the SDR1000 – taken from the SDR1000 manual ‘It offers seven open collector Darlington outputs that allow control of external devices such as transverters, relays, antennas, power amplifiers, etc. It also includes two dedicated push-to-talk (PTT) inputs . The connector has 5VDC power at up to 50mA for powering external relays or logic. The open collector outputs may also be used with external power supplies up to a maximum of 50VDC. The maximum collector current for a single output is 500mA’. So in fact we will be emulating the X2 connector used on the SDR1000.

I am going to do one last check of the IP3 and noise performance of each front end and also finalise the filters and then we will complete the schematic – I am hoping to have the schematic complete and ready for review next weekend. It really is taking shape!

73

Conrad G0RUZ

I have been having a blast on both 6m and 2m recently. I have added a number of new DXCC on 6m and even a new DXCC on 2m! I think that I will do separate pages for 2m and 6m generated from VQLog. I had a brief flirtation with HRD and while I liked the integration I felt that it was a bit bloated and had crap maps! Maps are important for the VHF DXer.

I have a configured VQLog to have a single database on the network and so there is only one log for my 2 different operating positions – one for 2m and one for 6m. I also have both the IC910 and IC575 talking to VQLog via a CAT interface which is really useful as is the DXCluster window. I also run LiveMUF by Dave G7RAU, what a fantastic tool it is, thanks Dave! I can honestly say that because of this tool I was almost certain that 2m would open to 7X and I had my antennas pointed in the right direction. I have been chasing 7X on 2m Sporadic E for 20 years and I have only heard it on 3 prior occasions and never managed to work it. He was only audible for perhaps 40 seconds long enough for Richard G6HKS and I to work him. I also heard UA3 for the first time ever via Es, the station in question was some 2800 kms away. All the Es reports are here -  ‘Make More Miles on VHF’ – Sporadic E Reports. I have caught 5 very brief openings on 2m if I recall correctly.

It is interesting that I have also been enjoying the challenge of working good distances on 23cms with just 4 watts at the feed of a 55 ele tonna. This is all well and good but bloody hard work for the other operator. I have ordered a PE1RKI 75W PA that I will be mounting at masthead along with an LNA. The 3dB feeder loss with an unadulterated IC910 is no fun. Incidentally the IC910 is an absolutely awful radio, I would like to apologise to local stations about the lousy noise sidebands in advance – I will replace it as soon as I can afford to. Of course the SDR system will be very clean and running high power with the IC910 will only be temporary.

I will be back on 2m EME as soon as physically possible, I am just researching the antenna system at the moment but I will be able to hear my own echoes and run on cw. I will also be playing around with WSJT for my own amusement but nothing comes close to cw EME in terms of enjoyment – not for me anyway.

73

Conrad G0RUZ

I returned to 6m today and what a great time I had. I am still operating from the G4NOK shack with a 7 ele M2 and now an Acom 1000 PA which is a dream to use.  I was watching spots at work and thought mmm I haven’t worked E4 or A92. I got to the shack about 1pm and had to reconfigure things slightly. I was shocked when I realised that the IC-575 that is used on 6m does not have an iambic keyer built in so I was forced to send CW with one paddle, I didn’t bring a straight key. Tomorrow that will be rectified as I have an old MFJ memory keyer somewhere, my goodness people must have thought I’d lost my mind.

Anyway I got both E4X and A92IO in the log as well as 7X and HA which was not licenced for 6m in 2003 which was the last time I was on. That is 4 new countries for me which I now make 180 in total. I had to make up cables and all sorts of things but I really enjoyed myself – I’ll be back on Saturday and Sunday as well.

At one point the MUF from EA got to 107 MHz so I was half expecting some 2m Es as well. I’m a shadow of my former self on 2m only an IC910 barefoot into a 3wl DJ9BV yagi but it will work for Es and MS I’m sure. On 70cms same rig and a 21 ele Tonna and on 23cms same with a 55 ele Tonna. I hope to give a few points away in the low band contest on 23cms on Sunday.  Once again big thanks to G4NOK for allowing me the use of the facilities.

73

Conrad G0RUZ

Luis Cupido CT1DMK and I have started work on a brand new SDR transceiver with the working title Weak Signal VHF,UHF and SHF SDR or WSVUS_SDR for short. It is aimed squarely at VHF/UHF and uWave DX’ers.  It will have 28 MHz, 50 MHz, 70 MHz or 220 MHz option, 144 MHz,  432 MHz and 1296 MHz as standard all locked externally with either a 1pps SPS signal or a 10 MHs clock.  The 28 MHz and 144 MHz bands will have dedicated transverter outputs so people can interface it with their own existing uWave transverters. Output will be around 100 mW on each band and eventually companion amplifiers for each band will be developed as soon as the main transceiver is operational. There will be external DIOs available to facilitate automatic transverter selection and control. The software will display the calibrated RX/TX frequency directly. It will be SDR1000 compatible and will therefore work with Power SDR software as used with existing Flex Radio equipment.   It is a very exciting project and I aim to get some working hardware very shortly. Luis is the clever one, I’ll be doing the donkey work like the PCB layout, filter design and mechanicals as well as taking care of the production and any FCC and CE marking. We may sell it as a kit but we are mindful of the fact that we need to keep support overheads to a minimum, we both have busy full time jobs. In fact Luis has 1.5 full time jobs judging by how late he has been at work this week!

The unit will require a sound-card which sets the viewable bandwidth to a maximum of 192 KHz, with a good quality sound-card dynamic range for each band will be more than adequate for everyday use by a VHF/UHF and uWave DX’er. Do not expect this project to fall by the wayside I am very determined to make this work.

73

Conrad G0RUZ

It was a bit of a lash up but we did it. We managed to have a contact with KP4AO  who were operating from the huge 305 metre (1000 feet) dish at Aricebo, Puerto Rico.  So what you might say, that’s easy. Not when you consider that we did it using the 432 MHz UHF band  (that’s somewhere below the TV band but above FM radio)and by bouncing signals off the moon, not easy at all!

This form of communication is known as Moon Bounce or EME which stands for Earth Moon Earth which explains the path that the signal is taking. It takes approximately 2.4 seconds for a signal to travel from Earth to the moon and then back to Earth. This is actually very useful as it allows a radio amateur to check the performance of their own station by listening for their own echoes. In the past I had systems on which I could almost always hear my own echoes. The station that we put together at the weekend was not capable of hearing self echoes, it relied upon the huge antenna at the other end of the link. The whole purpose of the operation at Aricebo was to celebrate the 30 years anniversary of moon bounce activity from the huge dish. The dish is used for scientific purposes and has a long waiting list of scientists wishing to use the facilities.

My old website has some info on EME  here:

Conrad’s moon bounce pages – there are a few links there which need updating but it should give an idea of what it is all about.

I have linked this blog to my fishing blog and so I feel that some explanations might be the order of the day. Firstly what on earth is amateur radio? For those who have no clue have a look at this site Newcomer’s Guide.

So we had 2 antennas each with 21 elements and a length of 4.6M, which were placed side by side with a separation of 1.63M. The club has 4 of these antennas but there we a few important ‘bits’ missing so we ended up using 2.  We had about 350 Watts of power on transmit but with cable losses we had about 200 Watts at the feed point of the antenna array. Enough of the details for now, I will put up separate page with photos showing just what a lash up it was, including close ups of bits of wire twisted together! I am waiting for the photos from Chris, Roger and Robin who were the core team. Without the teamwork we would have never done it – so well done everybody who helped.

Conrad

KP4AO will be on 432 MHz EME on 16th, 17th and 18th of April and will have a massive signal. They are using a 300 metre diameter parabolic reflector and 800W or so. They have a massive 60dBi of antenna gain. The club has enough kit to be able to work them on SSB if all things go to plan. Assuming an array of 4 x 21 element Tonna antennas and an average preamp and 3dB cable losses this is what the signals will look like.

Click on the photo for a full sized image.

They will be 28 dB above the noise on SSB, in my experience this will sound like S9 on EME and will probably move the S meter to about S7, G4NOK will be a similar strength with them. If we loose the amplifier then we will lose about 5dB which may not sound a lot but it is – it will put G4NOK down in the pileup noise. I know from experience that 5dB is a lot on eme. Also we will not have very sophisticated moon tracking and it will help if we are a ‘little off’ on the moon.

G4NOK can do this with the help of about 3 or 4 people. It is newsworthy and excellent publicity. So lets do it!

73

Conrad G0RUZ

PS I have just found out that KP4AO have 400 Watts and not 800, so they will be 3 dB quieter. Any of the novice readers like to leave a comment as to why that is the case? Come on think about it, it will get the grey matter working and get you thinking about dB’s

My g0ruz.com website is very out of date so I thought that I would slowly start to update it. I’ll do a new about me page and eventually move all this lot to the root of the g0ruz.com web-pages. I’m not really that active these days but I am working in RF on a daily basis so amateur radio is never far from my thoughts. I am 99% certain that any new activity from me will be on 23 and 13 cms EME. I do still have a 3.7m dish which is still in reasonable repair. I will not come on eme until I have found suitable premises, in other words probably from my own home. I don’t expect that I will be able to do that for another 5 years or so, goodness only knows what state EME will be in by then. Anyway I will see you soon, I may come on 6m from time to time from the North Wakefield Club station  G4NOK as conditions improve.

73

Conrad G0RUZ