Front Panel
Back Panel
Microwave |
| Well I made it at last !! after a lot of problems and delays I'm now active on 3cm SSB. The short storey goes something like this. It all started when Noel (G8GTZ) and I got chatting one night and decided to get some narrow band gear. After looking around to see what was available we decided to buy two DB6NT 3cm transverter. The kits arrived and they seemed very nice and well presented. The first problem (for me) came when I dropped all the surface mount caps on the floor !!. Some how I did find them all and after borrowing a capacitance meter from Peter (SWL) I also identified them all. The board was then built and prier to testing I read the instructions (problem number two) it said that you should clean the board and then dry it out by putting it into a airing cupboard over night or in the oven for one hour, so not having a airing cupboard I opted for the oven. Problem number three, after only 10mins in the oven I thought I would check on it. At this point I will not repeat what I said but just to say that all the filters on the underside of the board were on the bottom of the inside of the oven. After purchasing a new set of filters I set about trying to repair the damage. This was were problem four was encountered, try as much as we could just could not get any LO above 639MHz. So plan B I built a DDK004 board (2556MHz LO) this was built and got going but just could not get that much out put from it. The answer was in a Mini-Circuits ERA5 which got me enough drive to get 120mW from the DB6NT box. The gear is all boxed up now and seems to be working very well. Both Noel and myself now have 1W PA's to finish off and test and integrate into the system. |
Front Panel |
Back Panel |
Inside The Box |
The PA and its PSU |
The ERA-5 LO Amp |
The Sequencer |
| In side the box you can see the DDK004 LO at the top, then the DB6NT. At the bottom of the picture there is the 2mtr relay on the right and the 4port SMA relay for the transverter on the left. The 2mtr relay is used to change the 2mtr radio to either the transverter or the 2mtr beam. Although the PA is not finished yet it will integrate with the rest of the box so keeping it nice and small. When I first built this I was going to use it on a tripod, so the box I used was not the most water tight box to hand. This meant that to put it up the mast I would have to re-box it or find a way to water proof it. The answer was in a large plastic box (the type used with food) the whole lot just goes into the plastic box and the leads go into the bottom through some small holes. This means I can still use it on the tripod or the mast. |
