Weather to make a antenna

whether weather two to too their there...

Well I decided to make a 137mhz weather antenna but have hit a wall as it looks like I need to add a preamp at the masthead .

The signal is poor and may need to even reduce the coax length, or even change it all together ( I am using 75 ohm sat cable as i read it makes no difference as there is no transmitter connected)

I am using a SDRplay for receive with a 137 mhz bandpass filter at the input of the sdr.

Software 

SDR Uno for receive 

Com0com for virtual com ports

VB-Cable for virtual audio leads

Orbitron for frequency doplar control 

WxtoImg for decoding and storing images

Pics of antenna

The curves

The preamp

The preamp above will be the tester .. first I will bypass the blocking cap so I can inject 5v up the coax to power the preamp via a bias-t

.... to be continued 

New Certificate

Woke up to a email stating I had a new award ..... thinking to myself "WHAT AWARD" anyway since it had a few details about me right and mentioned a qso and qrz I sent with it .....

Yes I had indeed had the qso but never knew it was to support our heroes in New York 

Respect to all emergency services, carers,food banks, shop and infrastructure workers... THANK YOU ... you guys rock!

Carolina Windom with bat wings

Well I needed to dust off the old Windom and though it was time to play antennas since the weather was nice

Once in place I decided to add 6 and 4 meters to the bat cave....

Once out of the bat cave the sun was getting tropical so after a quick refreshments it was back to the bat cave to make a lazy balun .....

With the balun constructed the project was finished and the tests began....

To be Honest 70 mhz did not come to much but I didnt expect miracles... but I was surprised how well 6m turned out ... oh well here we go 50 mhz is ready for action

Hustler Btv6 Upgrade

Well the old Hustler has done me proud over the years but theres a time we need to use the warc bands so here we go ...

Shes down for a clean ... and a upgrade

Supports added and wires cut to length for 18 and 24 Mhz

Heres the results on the analyser.

All in all it worked out well and a fun day was had by all

Back into FT8

Well it's been a while and the last big session I had was a few years back with PSK ... Since then I have tried JT and FT8 which was just about the same thing but times have changed with the software and its came a long way ....

Lockdown 101 .. find something to keep you busy

Set up the Icom ic-7100 with my old Acer laptop and connected the Hustler btv6  and away I went ... have some good results too

Scanner upgrade

Decided to invest in a digital scanning receiver as I have to monitor the repeater I maintain GB3TS which is system fusion.

 

With the latest update it had made the startup faster and added Tetra decode which is a nice extra.

Building a DSO

My long time friend Ronnie Wheeler who sadly passed away asked me if I could help him build his Oscilloscope... he sadly died a few days later ..... so keeping his dieing wish I decided to build his DSO which I will be selling or putting in a raffle to raise funds towards a good cause.

APT Wx Sat Reception

I have been watching a few videos on APT sat decoding and since I have a couple of sdr receivers ( hack rf and sdr uno) I thought I would make a start one a couple of filters ... the 1st I've made is a 137 Mhz bandpass which doesn't look too pretty but she definitely has all the curves in all the right places ....

SMD's populated

Coils are a bit too long but have tweaked centre band nicely

So here is the curves ... judge for yourselves

Tried it on the new NanoVNA-f and I was quite impressed with the quallity and how close it was to my Rigol 815

Here's the Smith's chart showing what I expected.. capacitance and a little inductance ... ( well that what the filter is made of )

Sorry for the time out

 

Hi all sorry but I have had a lot going on in my life ... I have still been a busy boy but have took a break from the blog.... I'm back with a few new things I've been upto to keep you all upto speed.

 Well I was diagnosed with high cholesterol and blood pressure and was told to change my lifestyle ... so I've been out walking every day and it had changed my life.

No need for tablets anymore and a few sizes smaller