RSGB Propagation forecast alerts me to DX.

Tuesday night was the 2m UKAC contest and as the clocks had changed, (enabling setup in Daylight), it was time to go portable from Blorenge, IO81LS again. As the RSGB prop forecast said conditions should be good  to the east I also took along a small 24G system to see what beacons I could hear before starting setting up the 2m gear.  I took my normal 24048/432MHz transverter (retuned from 24192MHz it used in the USA) with an FT817 as the IF and a 20dB reference horn. Sure enough upon arrival there was a big Inversion layer visible to the east.   GB3CAM at 210km was quickly found and was a good decode. GB3ZME was also a reasonable signal at 105km LOS , but not on the direct heading of 020 degrees but on 070 degrees! No other beacons were heard (GB3SCK and GB3AMU were considered possibilities)

The 24048/432MHz Transverter

The UKAC on 2m sounded like an HF contest on 20m. 144QSOS in 27 locators with the best DX being DJ2TX in JO33 at 731km. Used 300W (due to the auxiliary equipment more power tripped the 1000W generator) to a 9 ele at 15' from Elecraft K3 with solidstate amplifier and HA8ET preamp for the first 2 hours Then there was a generator incident so a KX3 running 2W from its internal batteries (I hadnt seen the need for the KX3 DC power lead!) was used for the remainder of the contest but 10 stations out to 350km were still worked!

Restoring my old FT726R

When we moved to the USA in the early 90's Roger GW5NF got the FT726R that was my primary VHF rig. It did make a trip to Gibraltar on the 1984 ZB2IQ expedition. Roger subsequently  used it with G4VXE off a car battery for Backpackers contests but had recently retired to the shack floor due to some issues. I decided it was time to rejuvenate it

First issue was that it did not work off the internal mains supply. Looking at the shorting plug on the back panel that had been used to supply 12V from the portable battery the link had not been removed, allowing 12V to be fed into the output of the internal PSU. Luckily Yaesu had foreseen this issue and fitted a fuse which had duly blown. The fuse  was replaced and the 12v wire removed from the plug and the radio lit up off its internal supply

50MHz and 432MHz receiver and transmitters worked fine but 144MHz was quiet on receive (no sign of GB3VHF) and only produced 3W on transmit. Occasionally blipping the ptt would increase the receive noise and the beacon would appear. An internet search revealed the radio is known for having a sticking relay in the 2m module which some had cured by burnishing the contacts whereas some had needed to replace the relay. Time to examine the module

Sure enough, in the quiet receive state no 9V was being supplied to the receiver chain by the relay. The relay, FBR221D012M  is no longer available  (note the available FBR221AD012M is very different). It was suggested that the contacts needed burnishing so the cover was taken off and the contacts burnished and adjusted. . This seemed to fix the problem for the time being. The transmit chain was also aligned as per the manual; a load of flux was found all over TC01 which was removed and adjusting TC01 and TC02 increased  the power to 18W which was reduced,  as per instructions to 10W maximum. The receiver was already tuned and could not be improved.  It was noted that the front end mod using a BF981 and the IF gain increase mod had previously been done, making it state of the art at the time

While the covers were off the 50MHz module was aligned. It had been noted as having a marked peak of 18W at 52.0MHz and 8W at 50.2MHz. Also the power control had limited range. 190degree setting was 0W 200degree was 4W and 210 degrees was 7W. The module was then aligned as per the manual the power output was now flat at 10W 50 to 52.5MHz but the power control was still compressed the best achievable was 190degree setting was 0W, 280degree was 5W and 10 degrees was 10W . 

The radio has been successfully restored and has now been re-integrated into Rogers shack to compliment his TS2000. It easily drives the 2m and 6m amps to full output.

Feature upgrades for the 432MHz Solidstate Amplifier

Having upgraded the 2m solidstate amplifier I decided I should do the same upgrade to the 432MHz Amplifier.  The original writeup is here The Two same features were needed:-

1. There is no bypass position, so one cannot test the antenna SWR before letting the amplifier use it. This cost of the lack of this feature was learnt the hard way on my 70MHz amplifier
2. Currently the Elecraft K3 keys the DEMI transverter which keys the amplifier which sequences the antenna relays and preamplifier. There is no output for the Amplifier to properly sequence the DEMI Transverter along with the antenna relays and preamplifier, this needs to be added.

A bypass switch was added to the front panel along with a bypass LED. A phono socket was added to the back panel for the Transverter output. An hour was spent adjusting the PIC code and all feature additions were accommodated.

Feature upgrades for the 144MHz Solidstate Amplifier

Having got the 2m Anglian up and running it was time to  interface it to the 400W solidstate Amplifier.  Two features were needed:-

1. There is no bypass position, so one cannot test the antenna SWR before letting the amplifier use it. This cost of the lack of this feature was learnt the hard way on my 70MHz amplifier
2. Currently the Elecraft K3 keys the amplifier which sequences the antenna relays and preamplifier. There is no output to properly sequence the Anglian Transverter along with the antenna relays and preamplifier.

A bypass switch was added to the front panel along with a bypass LED. A phono socket was added to the back panel for the Transverter output. An hour was spent adjusting the PIC code and all feature additions were accommodated. Also incorporated was the LCD showing the alarm trigger levels at amplifier startup

Locking the 2m Anglian Transverter to an external reference

G4DDK had mentioned it was possible to Injection lock the 116MHz oscillator of the Anglian Transverter by Injecting 116MHz into the LO port of the Transverter module. In my parts collection I found an early 116MHz DFS module, similar to the design used on 96MHz described at  at http://g4fre.com/dfs9096.pdf  except it used (10MHz * 11)+(3 * (10MHz/5)) and three 116MHz crystals. The output level was ideal at +3dBm While monitoring GB3VHF it was found to put the transverter onto the correct frequency as opposed to the free running frequency.

Having proved it worked, I then mounted the DFS116 inside the box. A slider switch (less likely to get damaged portable than a toggle switch) was used to remove the 13V from the DFS when there is no external 10MHz applied. The output from the DFS did not need disconnecting from the transverter LO input when powered off.

Using the Anglian 4m Transverter with ANAN-10 and N1MM logger+

This morning I decided using the K3 with the new Anglian 4m xverter for the 70MHz contest would be too easy, so I decided to try hooking it up to the ANAN-10 and trying to use it with the N1MM Logger+ software.

Its easier to use the TX port output with a 20db attenuator than the xverter port output. If you do use the XVERTER output, the TX port has to be terminated, as it still produces 0.5W output and Powersdr will complain of SWR alarms. As previously determined, a 30MHz LPF is always needed on the output.  I used the EOT output pin 25 of J16 to key the transverter. The Mic input had previously been wired for the KX3 PTT microphone

Powersdr makes the ANAN-10 look like a TS2000 to the N1MM software so N1MM could track the frequency through a com0com virtual serial connector.  I used a COM4<>COM5 pair.

Tuning Powersdr through the beacons was a challenge, so, having remembered I had a Griffin powermate USB knob I Installed that on the windows 7 64 bit machine (the driver/software on the griffin site for Vista worked fine). I configured it to tune the rig up and down. This worked fine BUT ONLY if Powersdr had focus. When N1MM had focus the tuning knob did very strange things to the frequency.  This was overcome by deleting the default setting entries in the Griffin setup software. I then discovered (after reading the N1MM documentation) it was possible to tune the radio (only in run mode) from the keyboard. This scheme worked well.

The transverter produced 7W into my loop antenna in the loft. A few QSOS were made on SSB with locals then my thoughts turned to CW. Initially I used the Powersdr CW keying facility as I failed setting up the N1MM keyer to send cw through the CAT connection. Unfortunately the paddle connections were swapped over so G4BRK got to suffer my cw with the paddle operated upside down ( you can swap the paddles over in Powersdr I later found out, but its in the <DSP><CW> tab!) I then worked G4BWP (my best dx) then G4RFR on CW.

After the contest I went back to looking at the N1MM keying. I discovered, (also in the <DSP><CW> tab) that, whilst leaving the primary cw connection as "radio", (ie its key jack) a secondary connection may be set as a com port (COM6 in my case) and the RTS and DTR set to convey the cw and PTT signals from N1MM. Another com0com virtual port pair was set up (COM6<>COM7). In N1MM in the <configurer><hardware> Tab,  COM6 was set up as a "CW/other" connection with RTS and DTR appropriately assigned. This then worked fine

Anglian 4m Transverter

Having had success with the 2m Anglian I decided it was time to finish its cousin the 4m Anglian Transverter . I also put the tinplate box module  in a cabinet along with the 7W power module mounted on a heatsink on the back panel, using the same metal box from makerbase.co.uk.  A metal chassis plate was needed for the inside of the box to mount the modules on, I found some aluminium sheet on ebay that could be supplied cut to size. Note that as supplied there is a lot of "paint to paint" contact between the metal box parts, so a lot of scraping was done to get "metal to metal" contact to help screening. To further help, a piece of Aluminium angle was mounted between the back panel and the chassis plate (as can be seen in the upper picture:-

The transverter was setup so that 0.5mW from the K3 on 10m produced 6W on 70MHz, which is the ideal drive level for my amplifier which has an internal 3dB Attenuator

Anglian 2m Transverter

A while ago I populated the pcb for my G4DDK 144MHz Anglian transverter. I finally got round to putting it in the tinplate box and tuned it up. All was well, so I decided to put it in a cabinet along with the 8W power module mounted on a heatsink on the back panel. I found a couple of cheap Metal boxes at makerbase.co.uk (unfortunately they have not stocked any for the last 2 years!) A metal plate would be needed for the inside of the box to mount the modules on, I found one off ebay that could be cut to size. Note that as supplied there is a lot of "paint to paint" contact between the metal box parts, so a lot of scraping was done to get "metal to metal" contact to help screening. To further help, a piece of ali angle was mounted between the back panel and the chassis plate (as can be seen in the lower picture:-

To add heat transfer, I wanted to mount the power module directly on the heatsink rather than mount it on the back panel then on the heatsink. To do this I would need to make a rectangular hole in the back panel. Discussing this at the Malvern Radio Club, it was recommended I used a nibbling tool. I found one on the internet for 9.00 shipped. It is a brilliant tool; I can see a lot of use in its future!

As there is no conductivity between the metal parts of the case due to the paint a lot of time was spent removing paint to allow good electrical contact between metal surfaces. I also add a piece of ali angle between the back panel and the chassis plate.

The transverter was setup so that 0.5mW from the K3 on 10m produced 7W on 144MHz, which is the ideal drive level for my amplifier

The 144MHz connectors were spaced to allow an external coaxial relay to be attached with a pair of BNC to BNC male adapters. This allows use with a single antenna feeder if needed. Normally when using a masthead preamp the two connectors are used, eliminating the prospect of transmitting up the back end of the preamp

updated nov 2017

K3 remotehams software with N1MM

Now being able to control the K3 remotely, I next wanted to integrate It into the N1MM contest software. To do this I would need a virtual com port setup on the client PC that would allow the serial data to be seen from the remote K3. Fortunately the remotehams client software under "options" has  "Elecraft K3 emulation" To install the drivers for this,  one needs to tick the install virtual port when installing the client software, then when that has successfully installed, under "options" "Elecraft K3 emulation" I chose com2 as the port to create under the "create virtual port" tab.. Note the data rate is fixed at 38400bd.


After this was done I chose "com2"  "k3" 38400" under "config" "config ports...." "hardware" in the N1mm software and the remote K3 acted exactly as if it was local


Note this same technique can be used in any software requiring to see the K3 on a serial port. Fldigi, WSPR v2.12 and logger32 have all been successfully tried

Remote Controlling the K3 using remotehams software

When they were first launched I bought a pair of RRC-1258mkIIs remoterig boxes to control my K3 across the Atlantic. They were quite large and needed lots of cables amd 12V. Recently the need to control the K3 resurfaced. Having seen and used the remotehams system at the 2014 Hamcom to control the KG6YPI remote in California from Dallas I decided it was worth investigation

The system requires a windows computer at the K3 end running the server software. At the other end a windows computer is needed running the client software. The computer can either display a radio front panel or drive a K3/0.

The client can also be used to connect to one of the radios around the world listed/registered with remoterigs 

Note in the list of rigs above the variety of rigs available. The software supports other rigs than elecraft. I used the KG6YPI (the software writer)  remote again to get familiar with the client software.


Next I installed the server software. For this I used an Acer V5 laptop. Audio connections to the K3 were made using the LIN IN/OUT on the back of the K3 using the method of my writeup along with a serial connection to the K3 serial port. The audio and rig settings under <options> on the server were adjusted appriately adjusted.  The 4 ports mentioned in the server documentation were opened and the server launched. Even though I allowed Upnp on my router the server software never found/used it.

Using my Dell laptop, I launched the client software and saw my server on the list at remotehams.com. This list saves the current internet details of the server, data between server and client is not sent through this location. Doubleclicking my server Launched the radio front panel. Using the <skins>  tab I choose the k3 skin which gave me an authentic looking K3 front panel:-

The received audio came out of the Dell laptop.The rig could be tuned band changed and, as I had given myself transmit priveleges I could also transmit.

Three discoveries I made early on:-
1. Under >publishing> on the server if "visible on remotehams.com" is unclicked the server will not appear on the list of available servers on everyones list. If you have a fixed ip this information can be entered under <file> <new connection> allowing a connection to be made more easily.
2. The volume control is at the top of the screen for the client. If the volume on the client K3 front panel is used the volume of the remote K3 is increased which may be a surprise to anyone nearby. For this reason in my server  settings the main and sub volume sliders excluded by being viewed in the client
3. By default the power on/off button is shown on the client.  The K3 can be turned off by this button but without extra hardware it cannot be turned back on. For this reason in my server settings the"power" button is prevented from being displayed on the client