QO-100 antenna reduce and setup upgrade...

Uninstalling the 1.5m dish (that was too big for NB) I install a brand new 80cm dish with the same POTY feed. Thanks George SV5KJO for donation.

New setup with ADALM Pluto SDR for RX-TX and an x-commercial Power Amplifier. A needed 12v to 28v step-up converter for PA and a step-down converter 12v to 5v for PLUTO and midrange preamplifier. Thanks to my good friend Tom SP5XMU for power amplifier...!!!

Testing the Band-Pass 2.4 GHz filter, power drop-down...

Tuning the step-up converter for 28v....

 

 QSO with FT8WW on QO-100 satellite....

New QO-100 antenna and feed....

 Last weekend I decide to upgrade my QO-100 antenna system. My good friend SV5SKE Euripidis gave me a 1.5m diameter prime focus dish (brand new). Also PE1LWT a year before send me an POTY feed so the gear it was around and ready to be assembled. The only thing that have to carry was the waterproof of feed point and BullsEye LNB preparation. My good friend Vangelis SV5FRV make the 3D printing of POTY parts.Thanks guys...   The construction takes all Suturday long and went just fine. Few final adjustments needed and Im count on the help of my good friend SV5KJO Giorgos as an Satellite expert. With my very fast adjastments, my signal on QO-100 improves and I see signals as 59+ on downlink...

 

Here is the results on air....

 

 

Es'hail QO-100 Geostationary SAT from our club station

 At October 23 we manage to make about 35 QSOs after the antenna installation at our club station SZ5RDS. The antenna is 2,4 meter diameter dish with prime focus and a dual feed antenna for 2,4 GHz and 10 GHz LNB. The power amplifier was an EDUP-AB300 8w (2,5w in real world) driven by two SPF-5189z preamps in cascade. The radio used was my ADALM PLUTO SDR with TCXO modification for stable RX-TX. Software for RX-TX was the very impressive DJ0ABR Linux Tranceiver v 1.70.

A big thanks to SV5AZP, SV5KJO, SV5SKE, SV5SKF as Satellite expirement team.

Hope to have soon a permanent installation and hear you via the satellite...!!!

 

AO-100 First ever SV5 QSO...

April 15, with the minimum rig setup.

Thanks Spyros SV8CS and SV5KJO George, for their help...!!!

Video here:. https://www.facebook.com/100006160840092/videos/pcb.595827581142916/2585681974980472/

My 2m transverter....

Searching the Ebay I show this auction:

Up for sale the 144 to 28 mhz No-Tune transverter board. It had been invented and built by one of our Ukrainean HAMs. The transverter has been tested and it works very good. And I can assure you it does. With this transverter you can operate on the 144-146 mhz band useing any type of HF radio at 28 to 30 mhz. You should apply only 100 mWt (0.1 Watts) to it on 10m band to get 10-12 W output power on 2m band. There is no antenna relay required. This auction is included the completely built and tested transverter board and the schematic diagram of the transverter. I made a translation from Russian to English and printed the text there on the back side of the sheet. There is No-Tune transverter. You should only place the board onto the radiator get necessary connection and it's ready to operate. This transverter so small that you can even place it inside your HF radio! Below the basic information about this transverter: The power voltage is 12 V. The Input RF power on 28mhz is about 100mWt (0.1 Watts). Output power on 144 mhz is 10-12 W LO freq is 116 mhz and the crystal it already installed on the board. TX Output transistor is RD15HVF1 RX Input transistor is BF998 PTT to ground. The size of the board is 7cm x 3.5cm The lot does not include the heatsink , power and RF connectors, wires or cables. To get the transverter worked you have to do some soldering works with a cables , wires and connectors. Probably some instruments would be required. I ship Worldwide from the Ukraine by Airmail with insurance and provide a tracking number that can be easily tracked through the Internet here. Usually shipping takes up to two weeks but it can be more or less delivery time depending on how quickly the package goes through Customs Thanks for watching my auction.

 

Knowing that Spyros SV8CS is looking for something like this for his remote station I call and inform him about the transverter....  Few minutes later Spyros make an order for the last two items. I thought that "is to cheap to be good" but the price (50 $) was too low for a second think. 

After 10 days the transverters arrives and last night (due to bad propagation on 6 and 4m) I decide to put it in a box.

My good friend George SV5KJO find and unusual but finally very ergonomic box from an old B/W CCD camera. I put out the junk and I have a nice box and guess what ...with PWR plug and a BNC for the IF input!!!

A spare hole filled with an RCA plug that is necessary for PPT and a new hole for the antenna PL connector. Before the metal work I make the wire work carefully as you can see on pictures ....

I disconect my ME4T 4m transverter from my FT-2000 and just put the plugs to the new 2m transverter. A short breath and fired up the Yaesu. I tuned directly to SV5VHF/b frequency at 144.850 (well is on 144.847 excactly...) and the keying from beacon comes clear and loud to my headphones with S-4. Unpluging the antenna from transverter and out it to FT-817 a see S-5....  Thats good news...

Tune to local repeater on FM the signal comes +40.   Also good news. The RX part is fine. No birdies no unusual sounds and signals.  And all functions and filters of FT-2000 is available....!!!

I make my tests on transmit also. Starting with CW the crispy clear sound of my keying comes out on my IC-7000 receiver and the frequency is also stable. No drifts so far. 

QSYing to local repeater again and optimizing the FM Mic Gain on FT-2000 menu I meet again on random George SV5KJO going to work.... The first thing that noticed is the " FB Audio" He comment also the clear signal. I explain to him that his box is filled with the small transverter .... "I nedd one of this too"....   

I think this small transverter is a diamond.  The price is too low and I don't know why the guy who make them decide to stop his pruduct.

Again thanks to my good friend Spyros SV8CS and George SV5KJO for their help ...

Finally Internet.....(!)

After long time finally this weekend we make the wi-fi internet connection at my 2nd QTH (Istrios village) at South Rhodes...Unfortunately the Greek  Telephony Organization says that is unable to give us ADSL connection due to old wireless telephone linking that not allow the data passing over it. So we decide to move our line number to nearest village and get the ADSL there (limited to 2 MBps) and then to make a backbone linking at 5 GHZ to connect both places.  Then a small vertical at the highest point of the village on 2,4 GHZ is giving 90% coverage ...!!! The project was designed by me and two good HAM friends (SV5KJO and SV5KKU)  help to make it  true....Here is the fotos...

Now (finally) Internet is working on my 2nd QTH and will be easiest to have DX cluster connection and ....a full remote station.

That's will be my next project....