[Lowfer] Beacon " XR " status

[Andy - KU4XR]

Hi Everyone:

Beacon " XR " hasn't fallen off the side of the earth, I just
haven't had it on for awhile. As many of you already know; I
have been experimenting with WSPR oh 160 meters for a few days
now, and the purpose, and intention is to hopefully get a WSPR
signal on 1750 meters, and again hopefully, very soon.
Charlie - " CV " , and myself have been constructing the exciter
to do digital signals on LF. We were both doing bench testing as
of last night - 3/10/2010. Neither one of us saw any of the good
smoke escaping, so preliminary testing was encouraging.
I'll let Charlie give the particulars on his setup when he is ready
to post them. We have been trying to work together, and coordinate
our projects to try to go on the air testing WSPR at the same time.
I am not fully sure that my exciter is operational, and bug free.
I tested it with a cheap signal generator, and it didn't have 
enough output to adequately drive the exciter. The exciter that I
chose to " TRY " to build is the VK5BR HF to LF Down Converter.
You can see the completed project, just before testing at:::

http://webpages.charter.net/ku4xr/HF%20to%20LF%20Down%20Converter.JPG

I am not an experienced builder, and this is my first attempt at
building something a little more complicated than the QRSS beacon.
It took 2 evenings to complete, and the most challenging part of the
construction, was building it from a schematic onto a perfboard.
Premade kits come with the PCB ready to go, parts at hand, and
step by step - put this here, now put that there instructions.
So this made me have to think about the layout, and wiring, and I
made some layout decisions that could have been better. Some things
are crammed too close together on the board.

My next testing step will be to get the Radio Shack HTX-100 10 meter
mobile modified for low power, and variable transmit frequency, rig
up the cabeling to the computer, and then connect it to the down 
converter and do some low level testing while monitoring with the 
HF rig. 

Still aways to go here, but moving forward.

73 to all for now :::


Andy - KU4XR - EM75xr - Friendsville, TN. USA
LOWfer Beacon " XR " @ 185.29875 KHz ( QRSS-60 )
Coordinates:  N:  35º 43' 54" - W:  84º 3' 16"
http://www.myspace.com/beaconxr
http://webpages.charter.net/ku4xr/