Hi Dave
This week I finally put together the 30m QRSS beacon kit I bought from
G0UPL at FDIM. I added a 5v linear regulator to allow operation from
a 9V battery, and an LED to show keying activity, and put the whole
thing in an Altoids tin. I uploaded some photos here:
Wow Dave. Fine photos! Most of my photos are taken with the camera in my Nokia E90 mobile phone. Your camera is doing a much nicer job!
One issue that came up is that I had a hard time getting my oscillator
frequency down to 10.140.050 MHz. Initially I couldn't get it below
10.140.220. I removed and re-wound L1 with 38 turns but that only
lowered me to about 10.140.100. So I added a 10pF capacitor across C9
and that brought my min frequency down below 10.140.000 (easily raised
by tuning C9). Although it seems to work fine now, I'm wondering if I
might have created a problem that I'm not aware of, or if the initial
high frequency was an indication of a mistake I made during the build.
Any thoughts?
I haven't heard of this problem before. Perhaps you just had a crystal that was some way off the normal frequency. I shouldn't think you made any mistake building, or that the remedial action you took would cause any other problem.
Your "gimmick" capacitor looks long... I wonder if it will create a wide FSK much more than 5Hz. Did you measure your amount of FSK?
I hope to put the beacon on the air on Friday night from my club in
Brooklyn, NY. This is my first attempt at QRSS and I'm really excited
to look for my signal on the grabbers tomorrow. Thanks Hans for a
great kit.
Good luck! Let us know how it goes.
73 Hans G0UPL
