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 (ZUT
826) CW Forever
What is ZUT? It's the Coast Guard
CW Operators Association. For more info click
here.
A note
about receiving WKYC-DT in Cleveland, Ohio
Well, it's here. June 12,
2009 our transmitter shut down on Channel
3 digital to the excitement of all the 6 meter fans out there.
Yesterday we completed the installation of
the antenna and lines and everything was electrically swept
and optimized. Today I put the power to it for a good
test and all was well.
Photos of the installation can be see at
the WKYC Xmtr & Tower link on the left side of this page.
Thanks for all the interest and emails.
I do appreciate it.
For more information, click
here.
The
Basic Stamp
Since starting my antenna project, I ran across an item
that seemed to do exactly what I needed. That would
be the Basic Stamp 1. Parallax Inc. came up with this
microprocessor and it is a blast to work with. I have
some folks interested in learning about this little gem and
I think if you're interested in antenna controls, it would
serve you well to take a close look at this Stamp and the
larger version with more commands and memory.
Among others using this chip is our amateur radio club's
satellite trailer. www.2cars.org.
The U-100 Project
An update word as of
June 2009 on this project. I had planned on making an
upgrade to the control system. As in the past, the
emphasis was on making it inexpensive. That didn't work
very well. While the below controller works fine the
plan was to make it much more accurate using a single Basic
Stamp 2.
The problem was that I
could not make the communications work fast enough to monitor
and send the position info back to the computer while still
issuing commands to move. It may have been possible to
do that with a Stamp 2 at the controller end and one at the
rotator end but then that defeated the purpose of being
inexpensive.
I look forward to others
investigating various possibilities and would appreciate
letting me know how you do.
The Basic Stamp Controller
Please go to the U100Info link at the
left. There is no charge for the program. The program
works with either Nova or Ham Radio Deluxe.
Click to enlarge
Well, I'm back on Oscar satellites again after many years
(since early '70's). Feels
pretty good. So far it's been AO-51 on the V/S.
2mtrs up/2.4ghz down. Like those
short wavelengths!
Borrowed the K5GNA downconverter from N8IS (told him I wanted
to play with it.)
Below is the mobile for AO-51. Click on pix for larger
view.
Click on photo for larger view
Az/El 2/70cm, hf, battery w/inverter
and most recently a solar
charging system (Not on this photo) on the N8IS trailer.
Right - Power system
for rotators and preamps. Also checkout the Alliance
U-100 rotator page on the left. My satellite tracking program
for the U-100 utilizes Nova for Windows.
 
Just a couple from a very long time ago.
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K8DAV@k8dav.com-99% mobile operation
