Hi Andy, I used to use these beacons regularly to check my systems on 2320/3400/5760MHz as I could hear them almost all the time. However since the tower height was reduced I can't hear them any more

CPC stock the SP13 connectors. 73, Neil G4BRK Virus-free. www.avast.com

Hi Ben, My first criterion in choosing a rig is that the tone must stay the same. This is done by offsetting the dial frequency by the CW tone when changing from SSB to CW. Yaesu and Elecraft rigs do

Looks like too much drive on the IF port. That's why I standardised on a 10mW level for driving transverters and made sure the driving rig could never provide more than that by modifying the rigs with

Hi Bob, I never used waveguide on my 3cm system, which worked very well. I had a similar length of RG402 from the PA to the SMA on the feed, it didn't lose me much. I actually put the preamp at the fe

Hi Roger, I use one for this. I run it on 28MHz and convert up to 144MHz using an Anglian transferred. This then drives the higher band transverters. It works very well and has a low-power TX output f

hi Neil, I'm completely with you about the IF levels - I use 13dBm for my 2m IF transverters which are old Kuhne kits in which I had no qualms about modifying the attenuator values. I'd probably go lo

Hi Daniel, I was around but can't have 3cm at home as the mast is too full already with the 1.5m mesh dish and yagis. Some good scatter on 6cm but nothing outside G was hrd. Would have liked to try to

Hi Andy, I use a home made 3-band loop feed for 13/9/6cm with a 1.5m dish. The performance seems reasonable, though I haven't done any direct comparisons. You can find dimensions in the W1GHZ antenna

Hi Ed, I would have been very interested in trying 9 & 6 if I had seen you. I can normally work G4ALY down that way. It was very busy last night both on KST and the bands so could easily have missed y

I make all the systems default to relay de-energised, which is the TX position. Only one band gets a "band select" signal which puts it into RX. The sequencer puts the relay for the selected band to T

Hi Robin, Yes, good points, but that is worse-casing everything. Actually the PSU puts out 13.8V but a couple of volts will be dropped in the cable up the mast. And the duty cycle is 50% max, probably

Well that's a lot of useful information - will take a little time to digest it. The switching supply options look interesting and the TI Webench tool very easy to use. I still lean towards a linear so

I need an LDO regulator to drop a nominal 12V down to 10V for a GaasFET PA for 6cm. I think it will need > 10A. Any good suggestions for a design to do this? Traditionally the LT1083 was used for this

Hi Richard, One thing that hasn't been mentioned is the clean pattern of a well set up dish, with rather less signal round the sides and back than a comparable Yagi. This is good in that more energy i

Hi Conrad, Thanks for that info and the picture - always nice to see how others do things. A good advert for the use of cable glands on masthead stuff. 73, Neil G4BRK

Hi again Alwyn, Yes, I always try to use top-hat connectors for outside connections. The v-groove ones are poor. I haven't had problems with water ingress on connectors (unlike plastic boxes or cables

Hi Alwyn, Thanks for the results on using RG142 with standard connectors. That increases my confidence and would certainly be a possibility for internal connections (preamps, PAs). I'd still worry abo

Hi Neil, Thanks for the info. I hadn't considered RG303/U but just found a couple of SMA leads made with it in my junk box. I'll check out the details and connectors. I had a look at the Spectech site

Hi Paul, Thanks for the reply. The stuff I have found on Ebay seems to be RG402 with RG141 erroneously added to the description instead of UT141. They all seem to be hand-formable semi-rigid cables, n