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Photos of a 30m beacon build, and a question about the oscillator frequency


Dave Clausen
 

Hi All-

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:



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 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.

72/73, Dave W2VV


"hanssummers2000"
 

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


Dave Clausen
 

Success! I'm QRV now and visible on ON5EX's grabber. It looks like I'm
centered at about 10.140.0010 MHz, slowly drifting down, with a shift
of 4 or 5 Hz. That is about what I estimated at home using a
general-purpose audio spectrometer program on my Mac.

This is cool. Are there any other working grabbers online I can check?
So far ON5EX's is the only one I've found that is actively updating.

72/73, Dave W2VV


"Paul Daulton"
 

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Dave the W4hbk grabber in Fla and kl1x/5 in ok are running.
?
I have gotten captures from both in the last few days.
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I will have to check the DX grabbers and see if I can be seen. From the mid south I doubt it , but who knows.
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Good luck
?
Paul Daulton K5WMS

----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, June 25, 2010 7:39 PM
Subject: Re: [QRPLabs] Re: Photos of a 30m beacon build, and a question about the oscillator frequency

?

Success! I'm QRV now and visible on ON5EX's grabber. It looks like I'm
centered at about 10.140.0010 MHz, slowly drifting down, with a shift
of 4 or 5 Hz. That is about what I estimated at home using a
general-purpose audio spectrometer program on my Mac.

This is cool. Are there any other working grabbers online I can check?
So far ON5EX's is the only one I've found that is actively updating.

72/73, Dave W2VV


Dave Clausen
 

Thanks for the suggestions and help guys.? FYI I wrote up a little blog post about my experience here:



72/73, Dave W2VV.


"hanssummers2000"
 

Congrats Dave! Glad you're having fun!

The QRSS grabber compendium is a great place to start, for finding the grabbers. I guess you've seen it already.

0.000073 de Hans G0UPL

--- In [email protected], Dave Clausen <daveclausen@...> wrote:

Success! I'm QRV now and visible on ON5EX's grabber. It looks like I'm
centered at about 10.140.0010 MHz, slowly drifting down, with a shift
of 4 or 5 Hz. That is about what I estimated at home using a
general-purpose audio spectrometer program on my Mac.

This is cool. Are there any other working grabbers online I can check?
So far ON5EX's is the only one I've found that is actively updating.

72/73, Dave W2VV


"Newton White"
 

开云体育

Good Blog post Dave. On my return from a weeks trip overseas, I replaced my 4 'C' cells in the margarine container that houses my qrss kit from FDIM. I see my k0nwt in the screen grab you posted at about 0090. I'm about 4400 miles from Johan's grabber - fun stuff!
?
72,
k0nwt
Newt
?

----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, June 26, 2010 01:46
Subject: Re: [QRPLabs] Re: Photos of a 30m beacon build, and a question about the oscillator frequency

?

Thanks for the suggestions and help guys.? FYI I wrote up a little blog post about my experience here:



72/73, Dave W2VV.