[Lowfer] Beacon DIR on the air...

[Bill Ashlock]

Hi Jim,

Great to see another Lowfer on the air! I have one question from your description below. Did you mean 90 ma for the current to your final rather than 9 ma? Since P= VxI you would be running only .1 w .... and that might not get you out of your back yard :)

Have fun!

Bill 

> From: w4jbm at bellsouth.net
> To: part15 at yahoogroups.com; lowfer at mailman.qth.net
> Date: Sat, 3 Oct 2009 12:18:23 -0400
> Subject: [Lowfer] Beacon DIR on the air...
> 
> Finally. :-)
> 
> About a year of messing around. My o'scope broke during some of my original 
> testing and there's about a 6 month period of total addiction to tinkering 
> with Tektronix test gear in there. And there is still more that I need to do.
> 
> Right now I'm using a PIC based keyer to send QRSS-30. The oscillator is a 
> crystal controlled VXO set to 172.945 kHz (as close as I can measure with the 
> gear I have). Actually the VXO is set to twice that and then it's divided by 
> two in a line driver to make sure I've got a clean square wave going out on 
> the coax. The final is a slightly modified LEK design. It's operating at 11 
> volts and pulling 9 mA (measured at the xmitter).
> 
> Antenna is a 30 foot high T configuration with the upper portion also being 30 
> feet. For now it's held in place with a pair of fence t-posts I've driven and 
> lashed army surplus tent poles to to get it up in the air.
> 
> With my receiver, I can't see any evidence of any second or third harmonics 
> outside the shack. (Or even inside the shack where the oscillator is located 
> and is actually running at 2x the frequency. But everything is decently 
> shielded.)
> 
> Location is Bowdon Junction, GA (lat/long below). If anyone receives it, I'd 
> love to see screen shots and I will QSL.
> 
> On the to-do list is to build an interface that will divide down my DSS which 
> will only move in 1 kHz steps so I can get my signal closer to the watering 
> hole and also a better "top hat" for the antenna.
> 
> Installation is pretty much a lash-up at this point. If it seems to be getting 
> out, I'll make it more permanent. If not, I'll go back to the drawing 
> board. :-)
> 
> 73 de
> Jim W4JBM
> 
> Receiver - Ten Tec RX320D
> Antenna - Butternut Vertical (SW) and mini-whip (LF)
> Location - Bowdon Junction, GA  USA (33.6581,-85.1249 EM73)
> 
> http://www.hamuniverse.com/w4jbm/
> 
> "With a soldering iron in one hand, a schematic in the other, and a puzzled 
> look on his face..."
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