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Topic starter
12/01/2024 3:19 pm
clipped from Johns email *
Last night's meeting at the bunker was very interesting (apart from the QRM from KOV/A....hi). The possibilities of a club project was of great interest to me. So much so that I believe it may be beneficial to start a thread discussing the possibilities of such a project. The first things that sprung to mind on my drive home was:
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What frequency or frequency bands will the equipment cover?
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What mode or modes will it operate?
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In respect of the target project, will it be a receiver or a transmitter or both?
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What mode or modes will it operate?
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What architecture will it use?
Once those points are determined there will be other design considerations to be addressed, however, first things first.
Thoughts?
73 John, G4FUO
12/01/2024 7:56 pm
Stephen, M7HFY,
Following on from my Facebook and email message to the group. Last night Rod, G4TEW described an intention for a club project to be a stage by stage modular constructional project. The intent is that members who participated could learn something of the operation and design process as the project proceeded. As a first step I believe it would be good to decide what the finished objective might be, hence my post on Facebook and the Googlegroup.
John, G4FUO
13/01/2024 11:31 am
I've beaten the home construction drum many times at the club. Last year I put forward an idea to build a simple, single frequency ssb transceiver which could be used for a club home-brew net. It was to be based on Peter Parker VK3YE's knobless wonder. I altered the circuit to work on 80m, sorted out a few problems and built a prototype, which worked well, Roy M0RDY is my witness. One or two members showed interest, but I soon realized that it wasn't going to get any further.
I've now come to the conclusion that we need a different approach.
Start at the shallow end.
Any stage should be easy to build and require 10 to 15 components maximum.
Radio amateurs, who like to use home-brew equipment on the air, will already have a home-brew station, so anything built by club members will most likely only go on the air for testing and novelty, very much like the pixie.
Emphasis on learning, how to solder, types of construction, how each stage works, how to fault find, how to test and take measurements. It would be the journey that's more important than the destination.
Rod and I thought it would be best to work through the circuits from 'Solid State Design for the Radio Amateur' Chapter 2, Basics of Transmitter Design.
If anyone is grabbed by the home construction bug great, then we can proceed to dsb, ssb, sdr whatever.
Steve M0KOV
15/01/2024 9:29 pm
Steve,
Certainly the home brew is a great thing to aspire to. I saw Rod walk out with the Solid State Design book. Another great publication is the ARRL's Experimental Methods in RF Design. The building blocks may inspire one or two people. However, the excitement is quite low key at the moment.
John
