2007 ARRL 10 GHz and Up Contest
08/22/2007 |
N6GKJ
WOW~~~ what a great event!!! this is my second time out in this contest. Last contest I had a very crude transverter that actually worked!! I made 2 contacts last year and then I was hooked on 10 Ghz.
This time around I designed and built a new transverter from parts I bought off of Ebay!! I bought a surplus harris radio for 25 bucks, I bought a tuned up brick and a spare crystal for 90 bucks, and I built everything else!!! I put a DEMI single stage pre-amp in as the front end, I am running the stock harris LPA, good for about 400 mw with enough drive, I am getting 200 mw, so I am not going to complain.
I was on the "Cactus Network" and I learned that WA6JYUwas on Mt. Vaca looking for 10 Ghz contacts, I had the truck loaded already and headed to Mt. Vaca. I set up, tuned in the beacon, and was ready to go, or so I thought. First contact was with N6JV, I think he is everyones first contact, he has the most powerful and reliable home 10 Ghz station in Northen California to my knowlege. He is always very strong and when Norm is on you can hear him for a long way!!
I worked 5 stations on Saturday, 3 were out at least 100 miles. I could not however hear anyone as good as WA6JYU could, I could not imagine that that DB6NT unit was that much better then my homebrew unit....So I packed up, called Norm on the phone and headed to 10Ghz central. We put my transverter on the bench, we checked gain and losses at every point along the rx signal path. We measured 31db of rx gain to the input of the rx filter...guess what??? we had lost 28db of signal to insertion loss!! I either mistuned the filter or put the wrong filter in the transverter!! Anyway a quick re-alignment and a check of the tx path and we both felt the transverter was ready for prime time. We found 4db of insertion loss in my antenna jumper, but there was not anything I could do about it then anyway, so I ran with it on sunday.
Well.....Sunday afternoon arrives and I find myself back on top of Mt Vaca once again, I am hearing stations very nice and strong that were nearly undetectable the day before. Well needless to say, the repair was a success. I made nother 10 contacts or so on Sunday. I was even listening to to the Frazier Pk beacon when the wind gusts came up and blew the dish over....well, the transverter and IF rig was not on the mount, so it didnt hurt anything but the feed assembly
I was in the process of trying to work AA6IW on Frazier Pk when I lost the dish.
The biggest problem I face is LO stability...AD6IW has the solution for me, so next time out I am going to be 100% ready. I am the new kid on the block, I made so many mistakes and errors it was not even funny from not being carefull enough during construction to poor contest proceedures. I had learned the hard way, the up here, you cannot operate like you do in the VHF contests, there is not much margin for error.
I want to thank each and everyone of the stations that I contacted, I learned something very valuable and important from all of them, that is ...never give up....keep going the thrill is the farthest contact, the chase is worth it!!
73,
Ron... -- N6GKJ
This time around I designed and built a new transverter from parts I bought off of Ebay!! I bought a surplus harris radio for 25 bucks, I bought a tuned up brick and a spare crystal for 90 bucks, and I built everything else!!! I put a DEMI single stage pre-amp in as the front end, I am running the stock harris LPA, good for about 400 mw with enough drive, I am getting 200 mw, so I am not going to complain.
I was on the "Cactus Network" and I learned that WA6JYUwas on Mt. Vaca looking for 10 Ghz contacts, I had the truck loaded already and headed to Mt. Vaca. I set up, tuned in the beacon, and was ready to go, or so I thought. First contact was with N6JV, I think he is everyones first contact, he has the most powerful and reliable home 10 Ghz station in Northen California to my knowlege. He is always very strong and when Norm is on you can hear him for a long way!!
I worked 5 stations on Saturday, 3 were out at least 100 miles. I could not however hear anyone as good as WA6JYU could, I could not imagine that that DB6NT unit was that much better then my homebrew unit....So I packed up, called Norm on the phone and headed to 10Ghz central. We put my transverter on the bench, we checked gain and losses at every point along the rx signal path. We measured 31db of rx gain to the input of the rx filter...guess what??? we had lost 28db of signal to insertion loss!! I either mistuned the filter or put the wrong filter in the transverter!! Anyway a quick re-alignment and a check of the tx path and we both felt the transverter was ready for prime time. We found 4db of insertion loss in my antenna jumper, but there was not anything I could do about it then anyway, so I ran with it on sunday.
Well.....Sunday afternoon arrives and I find myself back on top of Mt Vaca once again, I am hearing stations very nice and strong that were nearly undetectable the day before. Well needless to say, the repair was a success. I made nother 10 contacts or so on Sunday. I was even listening to to the Frazier Pk beacon when the wind gusts came up and blew the dish over....well, the transverter and IF rig was not on the mount, so it didnt hurt anything but the feed assembly
I was in the process of trying to work AA6IW on Frazier Pk when I lost the dish.
The biggest problem I face is LO stability...AD6IW has the solution for me, so next time out I am going to be 100% ready. I am the new kid on the block, I made so many mistakes and errors it was not even funny from not being carefull enough during construction to poor contest proceedures. I had learned the hard way, the up here, you cannot operate like you do in the VHF contests, there is not much margin for error.
I want to thank each and everyone of the stations that I contacted, I learned something very valuable and important from all of them, that is ...never give up....keep going the thrill is the farthest contact, the chase is worth it!!
73,
Ron... -- N6GKJ
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