Ash, its great that your so keen to offer your services! If I had the knowledge and parts I would be putting together as many as were needed right now, but I've never been shown how.
I was going to mention what David did about the WIA funding. Dont they fund a lot of repeaters in Australia? Maybe this needs extending to beacons?
I have some FM 900 type radios, I think they are VHF, not sure if they are any good for beacons, but are available if can be used.
Are more beacons needed in VK on VHF & above
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VK2XSO
Re: Are more beacons needed in VK on VHF & above
Yeah, the poor old FM900's are really not even as good as a cheap $150 ham radio for beacon work.
However, they are useful for APRS digipeaters. If you program them up with 145.175MHz ... I can find them a home on a hill in a remote part of the country.
I can even give you more as a replacement
They are known for having a bit of a dirty output, which is why I recommend them for remote locations and better quality radios for the more populated areas.
I probably should try and make it a little bit clearer about what Dave has said.
It's basically about the quality of the beacon.
If you have a standard FM mobile or hand held rig and an SSB rig.
Set the SSB unit up with a spectrograph waterfall display and then transmit with the FM rig and watch the carrier on the display.
The line should be straight. But it it drifts slightly, say 100Hz over 1 minute, then this can be rather annoying having to tune around a bit to find the beacon.
If it's higher up in the microwave bands, a drift of 5KHz is not much, but for narrowband modes it can make all the difference.
Then there is phase noise of the carrier. A lot of hams are not be too familiar with phase noise.
Basically it's the purity of the carrier. We might consider something like a Red traffic light. The purity of the red light is not very high. It consists of many colours of Red. A Gunn Diode is another example of a noisy carrier. While it's ok for WBFM, it makes a lousy beacon.
A HeNe laser is an example of a high purity carrier. It is only one very precise frequency. Only one colour of Red.
A crystal oscillator is a good example of such a carrier. It still has a little bit of phase noise because nothing is perfect.
However, when we multiply a crystal oscillator up to the required frequency we also multiply any errors or noise it might have.
This too can be improved upon by treating our crystal and multiplier like a phase locked loop and referencing the crystal to a very precise standard like a 10MHz Rubidum or 5MHz GPS clock.
Naturally, all this takes time and money.
It's very easy to get a radio and chuck it on a hill. For 2m, it's literally a few minutes worth of work.
This may even be acceptable for 70cm and 23cm, but at 23cm it's really not good enough.
We require crystal oscillators for 1.2GHz, 2.4GHz, 3.4GHz and 5.6GHz.
Above that (and even below) Rubidium standard is required.
So, for the time being, if you have something which can transmit and you would like it to live somewhere remote.
It can be arranged.
However, they are useful for APRS digipeaters. If you program them up with 145.175MHz ... I can find them a home on a hill in a remote part of the country.
I can even give you more as a replacement
They are known for having a bit of a dirty output, which is why I recommend them for remote locations and better quality radios for the more populated areas.I probably should try and make it a little bit clearer about what Dave has said.
It's basically about the quality of the beacon.
If you have a standard FM mobile or hand held rig and an SSB rig.
Set the SSB unit up with a spectrograph waterfall display and then transmit with the FM rig and watch the carrier on the display.
The line should be straight. But it it drifts slightly, say 100Hz over 1 minute, then this can be rather annoying having to tune around a bit to find the beacon.
If it's higher up in the microwave bands, a drift of 5KHz is not much, but for narrowband modes it can make all the difference.
Then there is phase noise of the carrier. A lot of hams are not be too familiar with phase noise.
Basically it's the purity of the carrier. We might consider something like a Red traffic light. The purity of the red light is not very high. It consists of many colours of Red. A Gunn Diode is another example of a noisy carrier. While it's ok for WBFM, it makes a lousy beacon.
A HeNe laser is an example of a high purity carrier. It is only one very precise frequency. Only one colour of Red.
A crystal oscillator is a good example of such a carrier. It still has a little bit of phase noise because nothing is perfect.
However, when we multiply a crystal oscillator up to the required frequency we also multiply any errors or noise it might have.
This too can be improved upon by treating our crystal and multiplier like a phase locked loop and referencing the crystal to a very precise standard like a 10MHz Rubidum or 5MHz GPS clock.
Naturally, all this takes time and money.
It's very easy to get a radio and chuck it on a hill. For 2m, it's literally a few minutes worth of work.
This may even be acceptable for 70cm and 23cm, but at 23cm it's really not good enough.
We require crystal oscillators for 1.2GHz, 2.4GHz, 3.4GHz and 5.6GHz.
Above that (and even below) Rubidium standard is required.
So, for the time being, if you have something which can transmit and you would like it to live somewhere remote.
It can be arranged.
Are more beacons needed in VK on VHF & above
Beacons running wsjt modes would permit finding them when they are weak, which is what they often are. All the usual advantages of highly stable signals using defined digital protocols would help beacons a lot, effectively allowing listeners to dig into the noise to find the signals.
This is being done very successfully in the UK.
Andrew vk1da
---
- Andrew Davis VK1DA & VK2UH
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Vk1da.info vkfaq.ampr.org vk9na.com
This is being done very successfully in the UK.
Andrew vk1da
---
- Andrew Davis VK1DA & VK2UH
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Vk1da.info vkfaq.ampr.org vk9na.com
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VK2XSO
Re: Are more beacons needed in VK on VHF & above
Now, that's a damn good idea.
I don't know a lot about WSJT. I do know it's typically run from a PC, but I figure a PIC chip could do it too, especially since I already use PIC chips for other similar tasks. Since it doesn't have to calculate the waveform, all it would have to do is repeat a pre-determined waveform.
I also know it's run on a radio over SSB. I don't think it could be run over FM, and it might take a little bit of effort to modify an IF stage of an FM radio
to do the task.
I don't know a lot about WSJT. I do know it's typically run from a PC, but I figure a PIC chip could do it too, especially since I already use PIC chips for other similar tasks. Since it doesn't have to calculate the waveform, all it would have to do is repeat a pre-determined waveform.
I also know it's run on a radio over SSB. I don't think it could be run over FM, and it might take a little bit of effort to modify an IF stage of an FM radio
to do the task.
Re: Are more beacons needed in VK on VHF & above
Hi all,
WSJT mode beacons are one thing, but they may soon be old news. Those at GippsTech either last year or last month would have heard about Andrew VK3OE's chirp radar experiments. I understand that there are moves to integrate this technology into the HPSDR project through the Griffin board. More details at: http://openhpsdr.org/wiki/index.php?title=GRIFFIN
It promises to be very interesting when it comes into production. Whilst the technology is currently intended for HF and 6 m, it is intended to develop a board for 6 m & 2m as the next step. Who knows after that is working - using alias signals for higher frequencies, transvert to a higher band, or develop transmit boards for higher bands.
Peter VK3PF
WSJT mode beacons are one thing, but they may soon be old news. Those at GippsTech either last year or last month would have heard about Andrew VK3OE's chirp radar experiments. I understand that there are moves to integrate this technology into the HPSDR project through the Griffin board. More details at: http://openhpsdr.org/wiki/index.php?title=GRIFFIN
It promises to be very interesting when it comes into production. Whilst the technology is currently intended for HF and 6 m, it is intended to develop a board for 6 m & 2m as the next step. Who knows after that is working - using alias signals for higher frequencies, transvert to a higher band, or develop transmit boards for higher bands.
Peter VK3PF
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VK2KRR
Re: Are more beacons needed in VK on VHF & above
If beacons were made up to run WSPR, this means that virtually all beacons could run on the same frequency for each band. If it were possible to get them running a highly stable signal without drift, they could each be just a few Hz appart and even if some did TX at the same time occasionally, they would still be able to be decoded.
You DONT need an internet connection to run a WSPR beacon, but you do need very accurate timing and very stable signal.
Also if they were all on the one freq, it would be much easier to make them up in bulk and distribute around the country where needed.
WSPR program can also insert a CW ID at the end of each TX, for decoding by ear too.
There is a WSPR 2m beacon IZ4PSG/b that runs in Italy now, maybe others Im not sure.
You DONT need an internet connection to run a WSPR beacon, but you do need very accurate timing and very stable signal.
Also if they were all on the one freq, it would be much easier to make them up in bulk and distribute around the country where needed.
WSPR program can also insert a CW ID at the end of each TX, for decoding by ear too.
There is a WSPR 2m beacon IZ4PSG/b that runs in Italy now, maybe others Im not sure.
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VK2XSO
Re: Are more beacons needed in VK on VHF & above
This is an example of the kind of data one can extract from the APRS digipeaters acting as beacons.
VK1RGI-1 > VK7REC 3 2011-08-22 01:51:16 2011-08-22 18:44:14 QE38WC > QF44JL 714.3 km 186° 2011-08-22 18:44:14
Not a bad path for a 2m FM signal from omni antennas.
VK1RGI-1 > VK7REC 3 2011-08-22 01:51:16 2011-08-22 18:44:14 QE38WC > QF44JL 714.3 km 186° 2011-08-22 18:44:14
Not a bad path for a 2m FM signal from omni antennas.
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VK7DB
Re: Are more beacons needed in VK on VHF & above
VK7REC runs a Kyodo KG-109, so its not high powered either..