[Mep-dev] Don't forget this coming weekend

[Michelle]

Hi James and the list,

I'm in the process of putting together a 10GHz rig here (I blame James for the inspiration!), but will miss the upcoming weekend's contest due to having an insufficient oscillator. The phase noise of the programmable external oscillator I used (at the last minute before the range party at Kerry Banke's QTH) was too high for the rig to work. I might be ready by September, since I ordered W6PQL's OXCO kit already and have a 106.5MHz crystal on order as of... today, with a three week lead time. 

How high was the phase noise? Well, AD5T calculated that the carrier from the DB6NT transverter was at best 40dB below the noise. 

Here's a spectrum of the oscillator used at the range party:

http://mustbeart.vox.com/library/photo/6a00e3989d138d0001011017f2fdf9860e.html

We were able to tell that there was a received signal in there when other people transmitted at the range party - it was just about 150kHz wide. Heh.

The 10GHz rig is going to be used for both narrowband activity as well as MEP experiments for 10GHz.

There's been a lack of updates from me over the summer. With three children home from school during the summer, the opportunities for proper documentation of efforts tend to be less than there are during the school year. All three of my kids will be in school, for the first time, this coming school year. The youngest will be in preschool and the oldest in third grade.

The SBMS tranverter, which is the bridge design between now and when uWSDRs arrive, is entering second-edition territory. 3GHz and 5GHz boards will be a parts-list change. The intent is to have a quad-band design. Orders are not being taken quite yet, but we'll get enough to construct two MEP stations. 


More soon,
-Michelle W5NYV




----- Original Message ----
From: James French <w8iss at wideopenwest.com>
To: mep <mep-dev at uppermeadow.com>
Sent: Sunday, August 9, 2009 9:55:42 PM
Subject: [Mep-dev] Don't forget this coming weekend

This coming weekend is the first weekend of the ARRL 10GHz Cumulative
contest. As the name implies, anything 10GHZ and above will be used.
The next weekend is in September.

For most of you, you are familiar with radio operations. But this is a
way to see how most of the rest operate at the frequencies that have
been talked about being used and the 'talked about' transverters
actually operate and to see different antennas in use.

As for activity, I can only speak about two areas:
the Minneapolis, MN and State of Michigan areas.

The Northern Lights Radio Society ( http://www.nlrs.org ) is the group
spearheading the activity in Minneapolis by sponsoring the FAMOUS
Rovermania during the ARRL UHF contest and rallying everyone there to
get active on the microwave bands. Everything this coming weekend is
aimed for around the Minneapolis area per emails received so far.

In the State of Michigan, there are going to be three areas active
(known of so far):
along the South Eastern side of Lake Michigan
the Traverse City area
Western tip of Lake Erie

There are groups in Milwaukee, WI and the Chicago, IL areas that I
haven't heard from yet that are going to be active.

I would like to see some of the callsigns that I see come across this
list in the next listing of logs received for this contest. You MAY see
my call this year if things work out medically in the next couple of
weeks.

James W8ISS

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