Monday 19 November 2018

Low band

Nothing new on 70cm builds but I did put up my 80 m 1/4 vertical last week.
Its 20.5 m high and I did put out 80 radials 20m long and some 40m long ones too.
Have a tuning box in the bottom where I tune it at 3.79 and also a switch and a second matching net to allow operation at 3.5 as well.
Have an additional net for 40m but I have not put it in yet.





















Have also spent some time building and trying to communicate with a OE5JFL controller I got a PCB to from SM7FWZ some time ago.
The board is based on ON4BCB design.
http://moonbouncers.org/Orebro2017/ON4BCB%20OE5JFL%20diy.pptx

I cant communicate with the controller but I think it is a faulty RS232 circuit that causes it and I have ordered new ones so I can continue.
The board only have TTL serial signals so I built a converter with a MAX232 but it seems to not react correctly on one channel so I hope exchanging it will help.

The new amplifier on 70 is slow progress.
Got the controller working but need to get it all in the box and connect it together and to make the 24V regulator and switches.

Besides from that I waiting for the rain to stop and higher dec. so one can work and also the last ARRL part.

Wednesday 7 November 2018

Nothing new

Nothing has really happen since last weekend.
Worked some on the moon during the weekend but very low activity so mainly some tests with Bernie ZS4TX using different polarization.

Have continued with the Italab pallet amp I purchased a while ago but the progress is slow.
Did CAD and milled a PCB for the ON7EQ Arduino controller and put in screened box with feed through caps and inductors on the board that will hopefully work as RF sheild to avoid problems with RF on the input pins to the controller.











Will reprogram it later to also include the designer ON7EQ in the startup sequence.
I just did an initial test and tried to familiarize myself with the code.
The startup sequence fault handling seems to jump the 50V supply voltage because it never stops there as it stops on every other voltage or current measurement so I need to test some more another evening.

Have received the boxes for the preamp and balun but need to CAD and print a support for the balun before I can put everything inside and attach it to the antenna.
Hopefully the weather will be good in the weekend as now its very damp and wet so everything is soaked.