08/06/2008 | WB3BEL I pulled together a real homebrew 1296 transverter at the last minute to try out in the UHF contest. It was a real brassboard affair with about 1 watt output and manual TX/RX with baseball switches. There are coax cables interconnecting the various circuit cards. One for the LO synthesizer, One for the TX converter, One for the RX converter. And the PA module. I did not even have time to put it all in a box, so it was laying out on the lid of a tupperware storage container.

Everything was hooked up in the final two hours and managed to make 2 QSOs on 432 and 1 on 1296. So it was working. The station was operated from a picnic table in my back yard. Needless to say the elevation is very low and trees are everywhere to absorb the RF.

In addition, I also made a homebrew 6 foot 1296 yagi Saturday night with electrical house wiring hot glued to the boom. Its not pretty, but it seemed like it was working OK. I don't think it would stand up to the rigors of roving so a future project is on the horizon.

I wish I had gotten this pulled together earlier so I could have made more QSOs. I think most folks had packed it in by the time I was doing the final wiring. -- WB3BEL