Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2015 10:37:25 +0100
From: Chris Wilson <chris@chriswilson.tv>
Organization: Gatesgarth Developments
Message-ID: <1893481215.20151013103725@chriswilson.tv>
To: DK7FC <rsgb_lf_group@blacksheep.org>
In-Reply-To: <561BC13C.6070603@posteo.de>
References: <858532982.20151012141313@chriswilson.tv> <561BC13C.6070603@posteo.de>
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Subject: Re[2]: LF: First LF TX's from 2E0ILY
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Status: O

Hello DK7FC,

Monday, October 12, 2015


>    
>  Hello Chris, 
>  
>  My congrats!
>        Timestamp  Call  MHz  SNR  Drift  Grid  Pwr  Reporter  RGrid
> km  az       2015-10-12 14:14    2E0ILY    0.137500    -19    0   
> IO82qv    5    DK7FC    JN49ik    878    111       
>  That's really a good signal for that time. And i have a lot of QRM inside the 200 Hz wide WSPR-band!
>  
>  What antenna and power do you have?
>  
>  73, Stefan
>  

Thank you all for the congratulations and reports. Very early days
yet, and many improvements need making. The aerial is my HF horizontal
quad wire loop, up about 25 feet max, fed in a corner by my bungalow,
(its lowest point too, so not ideal...), using the shorted windowed
ladder line as the vertical. A six foot long ground spike near the
feed point is the only earth. I want to raise the loop higher, add a
ground wire under the perimeter, and add more ground spikes too. I may
try using a grounded electric fence as an addition too, it runs almost
underneath one leg of the loop.


As this is also my HF aerial I need to add some sort of relay to
disconnect the shorted feeder from the LF matching coil and connect to
a balun for feeding my HF stuff. Right now I can either use HF or LF
and changing means a trip outside and much fiddling about. I am
thinking of using an active whip and separate receiver for LF
reception and a grabber though.


I need to improve matching and resonance slightly, but intend changing
the feeder co-ax to the aerial for something less temporary. I built a
scopematch  and see the following right now, so room for improvement I
feel:

http://www.chriswilson.tv/scopemeter-tx-full-power.jpg

The driver is the DRV output at 1mW from my TS-590 feeding a W1VD pre
amp and W1VD frequency doubler, then running a G3YXM FET amp.

I noticed a hot smell from it last night, then it blew the RCD trip on
the house electric panel. It ran again, but again on higher power
ranges it did the same again. as it has over current and high SWR and
drive loss safety cut outs I suspected something in the power supply,
and indeed, it seems the toroidal mains transformer was getting hotter
than I would have liked. I am wondering it it has an internal
intermittent short? I may high pot test it later.


My  other  issue  is I have modded my TS-590 to use a VK3HZ GPS locked
master  oscillator, fed from my Trimble Thunderbolt GPS.


http://www.vk3hz.net/XRef/XRef_Home.html#XRef-Vx


It has worked perfectly for months. But now I am TX'ing on 136kHz it
is picking up RF, either into the Thunderbolt GPS itself, or a divider
board that offers divisions of 10MHz for other uses in the shack. I
see the square wave at 10MHz from the divider go crazy on my scope
when I TX, so I am not using the GPS locked oscillator and find my
signal is 3Hz off without it running. I am trimming on the actual rigs
frequency setting to compensate.


So  a  few  improvements to play with, and the issue of the GPS locked
oscillator  to  fix.  But  I am over the moon to be finally able to TX
rather than just listen.

A big step for me has been taken though! All the best.


-- 
Best regards,
 Chris                            mailto:chris@chriswilson.tv