Re: [Repeater-Builder] Commercial-Grade Repeaters for 6m
Hi sounds good but what about prices ?, they arn't going to be inexpensive are they Steve - Original Message - From: David Epley To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 12:05 PM Subject: RE: [Repeater-Builder] Commercial-Grade Repeaters for 6m I have VHF and UHF that I converted down from the commercial bands. They took slight retuning and a very small software hack. I liked what I saw so much I inquired about six meters. I was told that they would make any ham frequency I wanted. David Epley, N9CZV Randolph County Emergency Coordinator 4866N 400E Winchester, Indiana 47394 Cell765.546.2592 n9...@arrl.net
Re: [Repeater-Builder] Noise Level on a Duplexer
Dear Joe, Yes, we have observed the signal with a spectrum analyser. It is a broadband noise covering our entire TETRA band. Yes, the transmitter is keyed up continually. Regarding oscillation, what circuitry will develop the oscillation in 3 days? We are thinking about the heat problem too, as heat may be developed overtime. Best Regards, Kent --- On Tue, 9/3/10, Joe k1ike_m...@snet.net wrote: From: Joe k1ike_m...@snet.net Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Noise Level on a Duplexer To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Date: Tuesday, 9 March, 2010, 8:52 PM Hello Kent, Have you looked at the noise on a spectrum analyzer? Is is broadbanded noise, or is it just on your receiver frequencies? If it is only on specific frequencies, is it frequency stable or does it drift around? Also, do any of your transmitters stay constantly keyed up? I'm wondering if something external to your system is oscillating. Your signals may be causing it to go into self-oscillation. When you shut your system off it stops. This is just a guess right now. 73, Joe, K1ike http://sg.rd. yahoo.com/ sg/mail/domainch oice/mail/ signature/ *http://mail. promotions. yahoo.com/ newdomains/ sg/
Re: [Repeater-Builder] Noise Level on a Duplexer
Hello Kent, Have you looked at the noise on a spectrum analyzer? Is is broadbanded noise, or is it just on your receiver frequencies? If it is only on specific frequencies, is it frequency stable or does it drift around? Also, do any of your transmitters stay constantly keyed up? I'm wondering if something external to your system is oscillating. Your signals may be causing it to go into self-oscillation. When you shut your system off it stops. This is just a guess right now. 73, Joe, K1ike http://sg.rd.yahoo.com/sg/mail/domainchoice/mail/signature/*http://mail.promotions.yahoo.com/newdomains/sg/
[Repeater-Builder]GE Portable - Vintage?
Hi Folks! Looking for some info on a GE Portable I have here. In lieu of a Comb number, its giving me a P6 number above the serial number. It reads 66KDWDHX. I would like a Nomenclature sheet or spec sheet if anyone has it as I have several models very similar. If I recall correctly, this unit is pre-MASTR Series. FCC TX Data Reads KT107-A, and FCC RX Data reads ER59-D. Anyone out there know about these units? Thanks in Advance! John Hymes La Rue Communications 10 S. Aurora Street Stockton, CA 95202
RE: [Repeater-Builder] Commercial-Grade Repeaters for 6m
I have VHF and UHF that I converted down from the commercial bands. They took slight retuning and a very small software hack. I liked what I saw so much I inquired about six meters. I was told that they would make any ham frequency I wanted. David Epley, N9CZV Randolph County Emergency Coordinator 4866N 400E Winchester, Indiana 47394 Cell765.546.2592 n9...@arrl.net
[Repeater-Builder] GE Portable - Vintage? P6# 66KDWDHX
Hi Folks! Looking for some info on a GE Portable I have here. In lieu of a Comb number, its giving me a P6 number above the serial number. It reads 66KDWDHX. I would like a Nomenclature sheet or spec sheet if anyone has it as I have several models very similar. If I recall correctly, this unit is pre-MASTR Series. FCC TX Data Reads KT107-A, and FCC RX Data reads ER59-D. Anyone out there know about these units? Thanks in Advance! John Hymes La Rue Communications 10 S. Aurora Street Stockton, CA 95202
[Repeater-Builder] Re: Commercial-Grade Repeaters for 6m
Try DX radios their repeater are very flexible. If you're talking the black colored DX Radio Systems (I believe out of Canada and now the company is probably out of business)... ... the receivers are real poo poo (aka extra crappy). Someone on Ebay is selling one for a starting bid of $2500 and I wouldn't give $50 for it. We have a number of them in service (bought on a Government low bid contract) and they're horrible (receiver wise). Please excuse my comments if there is a different second DX Radios Company I'm not yet aware of. cheers, s.
Re: [Repeater-Builder] Amphenol Connex RF connectors
IMHO Amphenol Connectors are hard to beat and I personally do not know of any better. Especially when it comes to adapters they will outlast the cheapies many times over. Even when they discolor because of years of service, they still work good. Having said that I shop economy because of ham use, but it depends on where I put the connectors that makes me choose the quality. If you are going to hire a climber to put up an antenna you want the best connector or adapter in the air and again I believe that would be Amphenol. Good Luck JIM KA2AJH On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 1:05 PM, la88y llhorl...@gmail.com wrote: Anyone care to comment on the quality of the Amphenol Connex line of RF connectors? They have a pretty good price point, but only if they aren't junk. lh -- Jim Cicirello 181 Stevens Street Wellsville, N.Y. 14895 (585)593-4655
Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Commercial-Grade Repeaters for 6m
Why not just buy a retired GE MASTR-II station and convert it? If your looking for something synthesized you might try Spectra Engineering Pty. Ltd. They could probably make a Band A3 39-50 MHz MX-800 play on 6m ham.
Re: [Repeater-Builder] Amphenol Connex RF connectors
But I am led to believe that the Connex line may not be a purebred. There is certainly a remarkable price difference between those labeled Amphenol Connex and one labeled Amphenol. lh On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 12:41 PM, James Cicirello ka2...@gmail.com wrote: IMHO Amphenol Connectors are hard to beat and I personally do not know of any better. Especially when it comes to adapters they will outlast the cheapies many times over. Even when they discolor because of years of service, they still work good. Having said that I shop economy because of ham use, but it depends on where I put the connectors that makes me choose the quality. If you are going to hire a climber to put up an antenna you want the best connector or adapter in the air and again I believe that would be Amphenol. Good Luck JIM KA2AJH On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 1:05 PM, la88y llhorl...@gmail.com wrote: Anyone care to comment on the quality of the Amphenol Connex line of RF connectors? They have a pretty good price point, but only if they aren't junk. lh -- Jim Cicirello 181 Stevens Street Wellsville, N.Y. 14895 (585)593-4655
Re: [Repeater-Builder]GE Portable - Vintage?
Maybe this link will lead you in the correct direction... It is a PE 66KDWDHX Personal Series Portable... 11000-6 (PC-71) http://www.repeater-builder.com/ge/product-code-indexes/index-pc71-personal-pe-series.pdf
RE: [Repeater-Builder] WTB: VHF higher power.....
Chris, Having work on many in the past and rebuilt 3 amp after lightning strikes. Needless to say it took several hours to repair each and 3 days to rebuild each. I do not know if the parts are still available from Motorola, but they may be. I know they do not repair them at the depot anymore. 100 watts is not bad, but 350 is a lot better. You might start looking around for a complete unit as a spare, or look at getting a separate amp that will take the first amps power and give you 350 watts. This would require reconfiguring the PURC5000 to a low power unit, but would save the equipment in the long run. I hate to say it but it might be time to build another high power station using other equipment. Rebuilding is not out of the question, just finding the parts is. Good luck, Charles Miller WD5EEH, Dallas, TX, USA -Original Message- From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com [mailto:repeater-buil...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Chris Huber Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 12:39 AM To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Subject: [Repeater-Builder] WTB: VHF higher power. Looking for parts, amps anything to get my PURC 5000 350 watt amp back to full power.I lost one of the modules and the power protection now has it running at a 100 watts. Darn, so much for having 7 voting receivers. Would consider alternatives. Thanks, Chris N6ICW I like to be heard down in those canyons.
[Repeater-Builder] Dual receivers on one antenna for RX only site
Hello to the group, My name is Ross KC7RJK This is my first post. Most questions are answered from that amazing and up to date web site! I thank you all involved very very much for that. Well here's the question I've found little and conflicting info on the web about. So feel free to point me the right way here. Can a dualband antenna VHF/UHF for RX ONLY be fed to two receivers one VHF, one UHF, without a quote duplexer using a T instead? Here's the idea. This is a remote RX site. The idea is to run something like a beefed up X500 dualbander at tower top, then 7/8 hardline 100 feet down to the receivers. Both receivers will have one or two bandpass cavities inline before the T. Would a duplexer be necessary in this case. Or could it be done with proper cable lengths and a T? Thanks for your time and for the probably obvious answer I'm not sure of. Regards Ross KC7RJK
[Repeater-Builder] DeskTrac programming question
I have a DeskTrac AXL43SUM7000BT 146-174. Can I successfully push the transmitter to 143.685? I can program the freq (using the Maxtrac RSS. If I do read/write using the DeskTrac RSS it will not allow the freq.) but the Tx pwr goes up to 80w, clearly not good. lh
Re: [Repeater-Builder] Dual receivers on one antenna for RX only site
Answers below On 3/9/2010 8:29 AM, Ross Johnson wrote: Can a dualband antenna VHF/UHF for RX ONLY be fed to two receivers one VHF, one UHF, without a quote duplexer using a T instead? Yes. Typically performance is better with mono-band antennas, since all multiband antennas are a trade off in their design, but a T, or even splitting multiple times is certainly an option for any receive-only antenna system, with the caveat that there's loss at each split. Pre-amplifiers can help a bit, but once an RF signal is lost, there's no getting it back by amplification. Here's the idea. This is a remote RX site. The idea is to run something like a beefed up X500 dualbander at tower top, then 7/8 hardline 100 feet down to the receivers. So far fine. Both receivers will have one or two bandpass cavities inline before the T. I assume when you say before the T you mean antenna - split - bandpass - receiver. Yes, this is probably a good idea to keep the receiver from being hammered by other signals that are out-of-band, but not 100% necessary if this receive antenna is out in the middle of nowhere with no high-power transmitters nearby. The bandpass filtering is lossy too, of course. The higher the Q of the bandpass filter, the less the loss. (High Q bandpass cavities are typically MUCH larger than BpBr duplexer cans. At VHF they're enormous and take up a lot of space. Ceiling mounts are common.) remember also that you're really only adding the bandpass to design for what the receivers NEED to have filtered to perform at their best. If the receivers are something like the GE MASTR II or similar with a cavity helical filter front-end (bandpass filter) built-in, you don't NECESSARILY need more filtering in front of them. Just sayin'. Design your filters specifically for your receiver's ability to handle out-of-band or nearby signals and the signals that you expect to be present at the site. The filtering has nothing to do with the multi-bandedness of the antenna, etc. UNLESS your chosen receiver is particularly bad when say, a 1/4 KW 900 MHz transmitter is 2 feet away from the receive antenna, and your particular radio doesn't like that. (An example I saw once... even WITH filtering the amount of 900 MHz energy coming through the filters was enough to piss off a UHF receiver, being it was a 2x multiple of the UHF's front end and passed through without much loss. Would a duplexer be necessary in this case. Or could it be done with proper cable lengths and a T? A duplexer is a set of filters designed to pass a transmit frequency and filter it out of a receiver on a nearby frequency. Did you mean diplexer? I think that's what you're really meaning to ask. And the answer is no... you don't truly need a diplexer. ESPECIALLY if you're running separate bandpass filters on each receiver. Think about what a diplexer does... it passes lower frequencies to one port, and higher frequencies to another port... if you're already going to bandpass filter there's no need for it. As far as cable lengths go, I have no idea what you're asking. Cable lengths should have no effect on this system at all. Thanks for your time and for the probably obvious answer I'm not sure of... No worries, you're asking the right questions to learn what you need to know. We've all been there! (GRIN!) For more thought exercise on the topic of multi-band reception, pick something you know receives multiple bands, and think about it... Think about a scanner and a discone antenna. Technically inside the scanner, there's probably multiple receivers so to speak (not really, but bear with me... it'll receive on multiple bands, and what it's really doing is switching those receivers in and out for each band as necessary -- kinda... scanners really typically just have really broad receivers that are ultra-sensitive but tend toward not being very selective)... you just get the RF to the scanner, it'll hear it. Because it has a front-end with virtually zero filtering, It'll also get hammered by close-frequency transmitters and almost always suffer from images where strong out-of-band signals will mix in the scanner's IF and show up as frequencies you never thought had signals on them. (And don't.) The scanner nor the antenna care which band they're receiving. The RF just passes from the very wide-band antenna down the cable, where the receiver does what it can with the pile of signals that are constantly present. Other thoughts to think about: It is VERY common at busy sites where antenna space on a tower is at a premium to do things like require site tenants to share either a community receive antenna, and sometimes even a community transmit antenna. The receive antenna setup for a single band is simple... antenna - perhaps a wide bandpass high-Q cavity - perhaps a pre-amplifier to amplify only what's left over (the band desired) after that cavity
RE: [Repeater-Builder] Dual receivers on one antenna for RX only site
Quarter wave length cables are the thing to use to couple the cavities together at the antenna connection side of them. The uhf cavity gets a cable that is a quarter wave length at the VHF frequency and the VHF cavity gets a cable that is a quarter wave length at the UHF frequency. These connect to a T connector at the antenna line. This is the same way that you connect TX and RX cavities of a duplexer to an antenna. The UHF cavity loop provides a short circuit at the VHF frequency but the quarter wave cable from it transforms the short to an open (high impedance) at the T connection so you get no attenuation of the VHF signal there. The VHF signal then passes to the VHF cavity as if the UHF cavity was not there. The same thing happens to the UHF signal going to the other cavity. Without the proper length cables between the cavities and the antenna T connector both UHF and VHF signals will be attenuated depending on the luck of the cable length. The quarter wave length cable is the electrical length. It you are not combining the UHF and VHF signals with cavities then a signal splitter should be used. Even a TV cable type splitter will work ok for this. Don't worry about it being 75 ohms rather than 50 ohms. Without a splitter one receiver can load the input of the other considerably (depending on the luck of cable lengths) if just a simple T is used to connect the antenna to the two receivers. 73 Gary K4FMX _ From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com [mailto:repeater-buil...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Nate Duehr Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 5:11 PM To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Dual receivers on one antenna for RX only site Answers below On 3/9/2010 8:29 AM, Ross Johnson wrote: Can a dualband antenna VHF/UHF for RX ONLY be fed to two receivers one VHF, one UHF, without a quote duplexer using a T instead? Yes. Typically performance is better with mono-band antennas, since all multiband antennas are a trade off in their design, but a T, or even splitting multiple times is certainly an option for any receive-only antenna system, with the caveat that there's loss at each split. Pre-amplifiers can help a bit, but once an RF signal is lost, there's no getting it back by amplification. Here's the idea. This is a remote RX site. The idea is to run something like a beefed up X500 dualbander at tower top, then 7/8 hardline 100 feet down to the receivers. So far fine. Both receivers will have one or two bandpass cavities inline before the T. I assume when you say before the T you mean antenna - split - bandpass - receiver. Yes, this is probably a good idea to keep the receiver from being hammered by other signals that are out-of-band, but not 100% necessary if this receive antenna is out in the middle of nowhere with no high-power transmitters nearby. The bandpass filtering is lossy too, of course. The higher the Q of the bandpass filter, the less the loss. (High Q bandpass cavities are typically MUCH larger than BpBr duplexer cans. At VHF they're enormous and take up a lot of space. Ceiling mounts are common.) remember also that you're really only adding the bandpass to design for what the receivers NEED to have filtered to perform at their best. If the receivers are something like the GE MASTR II or similar with a cavity helical filter front-end (bandpass filter) built-in, you don't NECESSARILY need more filtering in front of them. Just sayin'. Design your filters specifically for your receiver's ability to handle out-of-band or nearby signals and the signals that you expect to be present at the site. The filtering has nothing to do with the multi-bandedness of the antenna, etc. UNLESS your chosen receiver is particularly bad when say, a 1/4 KW 900 MHz transmitter is 2 feet away from the receive antenna, and your particular radio doesn't like that. (An example I saw once... even WITH filtering the amount of 900 MHz energy coming through the filters was enough to piss off a UHF receiver, being it was a 2x multiple of the UHF's front end and passed through without much loss. Would a duplexer be necessary in this case. Or could it be done with proper cable lengths and a T? A duplexer is a set of filters designed to pass a transmit frequency and filter it out of a receiver on a nearby frequency. Did you mean diplexer? I think that's what you're really meaning to ask. And the answer is no... you don't truly need a diplexer. ESPECIALLY if you're running separate bandpass filters on each receiver. Think about what a diplexer does... it passes lower frequencies to one port, and higher frequencies to another port... if you're already going to bandpass filter there's no need for it. As far as cable lengths go, I have no idea what you're asking. Cable lengths should have no effect on this system at all. Thanks for your time and for the probably obvious answer I'm not sure of.
Re: [Repeater-Builder] Dual receivers on one antenna for RX only site
On 3/9/2010 4:53 PM, Gary Schafer wrote: Without the proper length cables between the cavities and the antenna T connector both UHF and VHF signals will be attenuated depending on the luck of the cable length. What technical reason causes this? Nate
[Repeater-Builder] Re: Dual receivers on one antenna for RX only site
Ross Johnson kc7...@... wrote: Hello to the group, My name is Ross KC7RJK This is my first post. Hi Ross, My name is skipp and I'm a junkoholic... hi skipp and I %#*^ scuse me, lost my mind for a moment. Moving along Most questions are answered from that amazing and up to date web site! I thank you all involved very very much for that. We don't play up the RB web site nearly enough... we also don't let Kevin, Scott or Mike run with scissors. Well here's the question I've found little and conflicting info on the web about. So feel free to point me the right way here. Simple, go west... better weather and less humidity. Can a dualband antenna VHF/UHF for RX ONLY be fed to two receivers one VHF, one UHF, without a quote duplexer using a T instead? Of course, but it may not be the best situation. Here's the idea. This is a remote RX site. The idea is to run something like a beefed up X500 dualbander at tower top, then 7/8 hardline 100 feet down to the receivers. Both receivers will have one or two bandpass cavities inline before the T. Would a duplexer be necessary in this case. Or could it be done with proper cable lengths and a T? Doesn't even need the special cable lengths but there is a reason for doing everything and here comes questions 101. Will the receivers stay on one frequency as in a repeater receiver or do you need to move around each band a bit? How much other RF is around? ... does the site have a lot of transmitters and are any of the high power monsters as in the case of paging or broadcast? If you don't have a lot of adjacent frequency operation going on there are two other options to consider. One is the Diamond or Comet type of band splitter, which actually would take the place of your T and be much better. Model CF-4160K http://www.universal-radio.com/CATALOG/hamantm/cduplex.html And another very nice option would be the DCI dual band filter Model: DCI-146-444-DB. http://www.dci.ca/?Section=ProductsSubSection=Amateur And you can use the plain T, a more traditional signal divider and various combination of band-pass cavity layouts. Thanks for your time and for the probably obvious answer I'm not sure of. Regards Ross KC7RJK be more worried when you feel sure of yourself. cheers, skipp
[Repeater-Builder] Writing Guidelines
I see the guidelines for writing; what are the guidelines for scanning documents? -- Kris Kirby, KE4AHR Disinformation Analyst
[Repeater-Builder] Re: Dual receivers on one antenna for RX only site
On 3/9/2010 4:53 PM, Gary Schafer wrote: Without the proper length cables between the cavities and the antenna T connector both UHF and VHF signals will be attenuated depending on the luck of the cable length. Nate Duehr n...@... wrote: What technical reason causes this? Nate I could think of one really bad luck example... the cable length between the receivers through the T is x-value wave-length and the front end pre-selection of one or both receivers also has an unexpected (third) odd wave length response on the other band. Could happen... and in my case probably would happen when I need something to work in a middle of the night pinch. s. If there's a train wreck gonna happen, I'll probably be there...
RE: [Repeater-Builder] Dual receivers on one antenna for RX only site
_ From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com [mailto:repeater-buil...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Nate Duehr Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 7:24 PM To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Dual receivers on one antenna for RX only site On 3/9/2010 4:53 PM, Gary Schafer wrote: Without the proper length cables between the cavities and the antenna T connector both UHF and VHF signals will be attenuated depending on the luck of the cable length. What technical reason causes this? Nate Hi Nate, A UHF pass band cavity for example will pass only a UHF frequency that it is tuned for. On frequency signals coming into it will see 50 ohms. Off frequency signals will see a short circuit and will be greatly attenuated. The input loop of the cavity (as well as the output loop) looks like a short circuit at all but the tuned frequency. So anything that happens to be in parallel with the loop will also see the short circuit if the frequency is not that to which the cavity is tuned to. So if you had a half wave length cable between the cavity and your T connector, then the short circuit at the cavity (off frequency short) would also look like a short circuit at the T connector. No problem for the UHF signal as that frequency sees 50 ohms at the T. but any other frequency sees a short circuit at the T and would be attenuated there. Now if that cable was a quarter wave length instead of a half wave length, the short circuit (off frequency short) would be transformed to an open circuit at the T connector. That would allow all other frequencies to be present with no attenuation at the T. If you used a random length of cable here, you may be ok and you may not be depending on how far away from a quarter wave length the cable happened to be. This is exactly how a duplexer works. The cables between the T and each cavity set is a quarter wave length at the opposite frequency for which the cavity is tuned to. The quarter wave length cable connected to the T always wants to see a short at the other end at the frequency that it does not want to pass, as the quarter wave length transforms the short to a open which does not load down the other side of the circuit.. With close spaced duplexers sometimes the two cables may be very close in length or the same as the cable is not near as high a Q as the cavity is. 73 Gary K4FMX
Re: [Repeater-Builder] Amphenol Connex RF connectors
The Connex line is the cheapie line. It's still better than the real cheap imported crap, but as the price indicates, nowhere near the quality of the main mil-spec products. That said, I use quite a bit of the Connex stuff unless it's a critical application. You do get what you pay for. Bill KB1MGH From: James Cicirello ka2...@gmail.com To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tue, March 9, 2010 11:41:55 AM Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Amphenol Connex RF connectors IMHO Amphenol Connectors are hard to beat and I personally do not know of any better. Especially when it comes to adapters they will outlast the cheapies many times over. Even when they discolor because of years of service, they still work good. Having said that I shop economy because of ham use, but it depends on where I put the connectors that makes me choose the quality. If you are going to hire a climber to put up an antenna you want the best connector or adapter in the air and again I believe that would be Amphenol. Good Luck JIM KA2AJH On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 1:05 PM, la88y llhorl...@gmail.com wrote: Anyone care to comment on the quality of the Amphenol Connex line of RF connectors? They have a pretty good price point, but only if they aren't junk. lh -- Jim Cicirello 181 Stevens Street Wellsville, N.Y. 14895 (585)593-4655 The Connex line is their cheapy
Re: [Repeater-Builder] Amphenol Connex RF connectors
Bill, Are you familiar with Huber+Suhner? lh On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 8:26 PM, Bill Smith brsc...@yahoo.com wrote: The Connex line is the cheapie line. It's still better than the real cheap imported crap, but as the price indicates, nowhere near the quality of the main mil-spec products. That said, I use quite a bit of the Connex stuff unless it's a critical application. You do get what you pay for. Bill KB1MGH -- *From:* James Cicirello ka2...@gmail.com *To:* Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com *Sent:* Tue, March 9, 2010 11:41:55 AM *Subject:* Re: [Repeater-Builder] Amphenol Connex RF connectors IMHO Amphenol Connectors are hard to beat and I personally do not know of any better. Especially when it comes to adapters they will outlast the cheapies many times over. Even when they discolor because of years of service, they still work good. Having said that I shop economy because of ham use, but it depends on where I put the connectors that makes me choose the quality. If you are going to hire a climber to put up an antenna you want the best connector or adapter in the air and again I believe that would be Amphenol. Good Luck JIM KA2AJH On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 1:05 PM, la88y llhorl...@gmail.com wrote: Anyone care to comment on the quality of the Amphenol Connex line of RF connectors? They have a pretty good price point, but only if they aren't junk. lh -- Jim Cicirello 181 Stevens Street Wellsville, N.Y. 14895 (585)593-4655 The Connex line is their cheapy
RE: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Commercial-Grade Repeaters for 6m
That doesn't meet the client's requirements. Please re-read the original post. 73, Eric Lemmon WB6FLY -Original Message- From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com [mailto:repeater-buil...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of DCFluX Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 9:56 AM To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Commercial-Grade Repeaters for 6m Why not just buy a retired GE MASTR-II station and convert it? snip
Re: [Repeater-Builder] Amphenol Connex RF connectors
I got a couple thousand feet of Huber+Suhner double shielded all silver plated cabLe. It is a little bit smaller than RG8X or LMR 240 but is bigger than RG58. I can use LMR240 connectors from RFIndustries for the most part. The center conductor is bigger than RG223, RG58 or RG142 but just a bit smaller than LMR240. Great stuff. Has a foam dielectric and a 91 percent velocity factor... I actually have a few N male Huber+Suhner connectors for the stuff, but they are a real pain to install. 73 Norm - Original Message - From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tue Mar 09 19:30:38 2010 Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Amphenol Connex RF connectors Bill, Are you familiar with Huber+Suhner? lh On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 8:26 PM, Bill Smith brsc...@yahoo.com mailto:brsc...@yahoo.com wrote: The Connex line is the cheapie line. It's still better than the real cheap imported crap, but as the price indicates, nowhere near the quality of the main mil-spec products. That said, I use quite a bit of the Connex stuff unless it's a critical application. You do get what you pay for. Bill KB1MGH From: James Cicirello ka2...@gmail.com mailto:ka2...@gmail.com To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com mailto:Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tue, March 9, 2010 11:41:55 AM Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Amphenol Connex RF connectors IMHO Amphenol Connectors are hard to beat and I personally do not know of any better. Especially when it comes to adapters they will outlast the cheapies many times over. Even when they discolor because of years of service, they still work good. Having said that I shop economy because of ham use, but it depends on where I put the connectors that makes me choose the quality. If you are going to hire a climber to put up an antenna you want the best connector or adapter in the air and again I believe that would be Amphenol. Good Luck JIM KA2AJH On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 1:05 PM, la88y llhorl...@gmail.com mailto:llhorl...@gmail.com wrote: Anyone care to comment on the quality of the Amphenol Connex line of RF connectors? They have a pretty good price point, but only if they aren't junk. lh -- Jim Cicirello 181 Stevens Street Wellsville, N.Y. 14895 (585)593-4655 The Connex line is their cheapy
RE: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Commercial-Grade Repeaters for 6m
Skipp, The company we're discussing is in Sun Valley, CA: http://www.dxradiosystems.com/ 73, Eric Lemmon WB6FLY -Original Message- From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com [mailto:repeater-buil...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of skipp025 Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 8:59 AM To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Commercial-Grade Repeaters for 6m Try DX radios their repeater are very flexible. If you're talking the black colored DX Radio Systems (I believe out of Canada and now the company is probably out of business)... ... the receivers are real poo poo (aka extra crappy). Someone on Ebay is selling one for a starting bid of $2500 and I wouldn't give $50 for it. We have a number of them in service (bought on a Government low bid contract) and they're horrible (receiver wise). Please excuse my comments if there is a different second DX Radios Company I'm not yet aware of. cheers, s.
RE: [Repeater-Builder] Writing Guidelines
An excellent question! Although this topic has been covered by a number of postings over the past few years, I have not seen a formal list published. To get the ball rolling, allow me to offer some suggestions: 1. Always scan directly into PDF, rather than into an image format such as JPEG, GIF, or TIFF. 2. Always scan text and schematic diagrams as 1-bit line art. 3. Always scan at 300 dpi resolution. 4. Always scan pages erect at 11 high (do not rotate for viewing- the Adobe Reader can do that). 5. Never scan long pages in segments; let a commercial graphics house scan it as one page. 6. Scan pink-and-gray PCB images in 8-bit gray scale rather than in full color. 7. Scan photos in gray scale only if important detail must be preserved; otherwise, use line art. 8. Don't scan irrelevant pages, such as pages for notes, parts ordering, customer feedback, etc. 9. Adjust scan margins as necessary to leave room for binder hole punching. 10. Adjust contrast and gamma as necessary to compensate for faded text or colored originals. I prefer the full Adobe Acrobat Professional 4.0 for the scanning phase, and Adobe Acrobat Professional 7.0 for collating, editing, and reducing file size. I use a MicroTek Scanmaker 9800XL large-format flatbed scanner that can handle up to 11 by 17 inch originals. Although I am permitted to use a Xerox self-feeding scanner at work, I have found its decisions about contrast and saturation to be below my expectations, so I often prefer to handle the scanning myself- especially if the product will be posted for future downloading by discriminating Hams! 73, Eric Lemmon WB6FLY -Original Message- From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com [mailto:repeater-buil...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Kris Kirby Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 4:38 PM To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Writing Guidelines I see the guidelines for writing; what are the guidelines for scanning documents? -- Kris Kirby, KE4AHR Disinformation Analyst
Re: [Repeater-Builder] Writing Guidelines
Kris Kirby wrote: I see the guidelines for writing; what are the guidelines for scanning documents? PDF please. Make the file as small as possible, BUT, don't skimp terribly just to save server space. There are many methods in which to scan and save - trial and error will reveal what you like and what you don't. Kevin
Re: [Repeater-Builder] Amphenol Connex RF connectors
Somewhat. Pricey but very good quality. From: Larry Horlick llhorl...@gmail.com To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tue, March 9, 2010 7:30:38 PM Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Amphenol Connex RF connectors Bill, Are you familiar with Huber+Suhner? lh On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 8:26 PM, Bill Smith brsc...@yahoo.com wrote: The Connex line is the cheapie line. It's still better than the real cheap imported crap, but as the price indicates, nowhere near the quality of the main mil-spec products. That said, I use quite a bit of the Connex stuff unless it's a critical application. You do get what you pay for. Bill KB1MGH From: James Cicirello ka2...@gmail.com To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tue, March 9, 2010 11:41:55 AM Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Amphenol Connex RF connectors IMHO Amphenol Connectors are hard to beat and I personally do not know of any better. Especially when it comes to adapters they will outlast the cheapies many times over. Even when they discolor because of years of service, they still work good. Having said that I shop economy because of ham use, but it depends on where I put the connectors that makes me choose the quality. If you are going to hire a climber to put up an antenna you want the best connector or adapter in the air and again I believe that would be Amphenol. Good Luck JIM KA2AJH On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 1:05 PM, la88y llhorl...@gmail.com wrote: Anyone care to comment on the quality of the Amphenol Connex line of RF connectors? They have a pretty good price point, but only if they aren't junk. lh -- Jim Cicirello 181 Stevens Street Wellsville, N.Y. 14895 (585)593-4655 The Connex line is their cheapy
Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Dual receivers on one antenna for RX only site
At 3/9/2010 16:29, you wrote: Here's the idea. This is a remote RX site. The idea is to run something like a beefed up X500 dualbander at tower top, then 7/8 hardline 100 feet down to the receivers. Both receivers will have one or two bandpass cavities inline before the T. Would a duplexer be necessary in this case. Or could it be done with proper cable lengths and a T? Doesn't even need the special cable lengths It most certainly does. Try random length cables from the cavities to the T instead of 1/4 wavelength (like one local did several years ago) watch your sensitivity drop by over 20 dB if you're unlucky (as he was). That mistake literally killed off a local radio club, as few of the members were able to use the repeater following the addition of the T wrong cables. but there is a reason for doing everything and here comes questions 101. Will the receivers stay on one frequency as in a repeater receiver or do you need to move around each band a bit? If he's got bandpass cavities in front of the RXs already, they're very likely not frequency-agile. How much other RF is around? ... does the site have a lot of transmitters and are any of the high power monsters as in the case of paging or broadcast? If you don't have a lot of adjacent frequency operation going on there are two other options to consider. One is the Diamond or Comet type of band splitter, which actually would take the place of your T and be much better. That would be my choice, but if he's already got the cans, a pair of 1/4 wavelength cables will be much cheaper. I'd stay away from using a broadband isolated power divider (splitter), as you'll lose 3 dB in the split. The frequency-splitting options lose virtually no signal. Bob NO6B
RE: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Dual receivers on one antenna for RX only site
Thanks for the replys everyone. That cleared it up for sure. I will go ahead and build the T to cavity cables to one electrical wave length for the other band. And is that ¼ wave plus velocity factor of cable? Which will be FSJ1. Here is some more detail on the system. It will go in stages. The final stage will be this remote receive setup with a UHF link on the bottom of the tower to the transmitter site. Also toying with a VOIP link with UHF as a failsafe. At this point the receivers are on separate antennas at the top of the tower, with 2 bandpass Sinclair 1-150-1S7 cavitys on the VHF, and one big Wacom cavity on the UHF receiver. The remote TX site hasnt been installed yet (waiting to find a MSR2000 UHF RX board for this divorced VHF TX site) so the transmitter is temporally at this site also. There are two bandpass cavitys DB4001s on this Mastr II transmitter with the antenna 40-50 feet down from the receive antenna. Sensitivity is shocking good right now with this setup. Very little RX loss, and very little desens. Will the receivers stay on one frequency as in a repeater receiver or do you need to move around each band a bit? Yes they will stay put. How much other RF is around? ... Does the site have a lot of transmitters and are any of the high power monsters as in the case of paging or broadcast? None in these bands! :-) But wireless ISP Ive found to be very noisy allover the place there. 50Mhz and up! Thanks again everyone! -Original Message- From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com [mailto:repeater-buil...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of skipp025 Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 4:29 PM To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Dual receivers on one antenna for RX only site Ross Johnson kc7...@... wrote: Hello to the group, My name is Ross KC7RJK This is my first post. Hi Ross, My name is skipp and I'm a junkoholic... hi skipp and I %#*^ scuse me, lost my mind for a moment. Moving along Most questions are answered from that amazing and up to date web site! I thank you all involved very very much for that. We don't play up the RB web site nearly enough... we also don't let Kevin, Scott or Mike run with scissors. Well here's the question I've found little and conflicting info on the web about. So feel free to point me the right way here. Simple, go west... better weather and less humidity. Can a dualband antenna VHF/UHF for RX ONLY be fed to two receivers one VHF, one UHF, without a quote duplexer using a T instead? Of course, but it may not be the best situation. Here's the idea. This is a remote RX site. The idea is to run something like a beefed up X500 dualbander at tower top, then 7/8 hardline 100 feet down to the receivers. Both receivers will have one or two bandpass cavities inline before the T. Would a duplexer be necessary in this case. Or could it be done with proper cable lengths and a T? Doesn't even need the special cable lengths but there is a reason for doing everything and here comes questions 101. Will the receivers stay on one frequency as in a repeater receiver or do you need to move around each band a bit? How much other RF is around? ... does the site have a lot of transmitters and are any of the high power monsters as in the case of paging or broadcast? If you don't have a lot of adjacent frequency operation going on there are two other options to consider. One is the Diamond or Comet type of band splitter, which actually would take the place of your T and be much better. Model CF-4160K http://www.universa http://www.universal-radio.com/CATALOG/hamantm/cduplex.html l-radio.com/CATALOG/hamantm/cduplex.html And another very nice option would be the DCI dual band filter Model: DCI-146-444-DB. http://www.dci. http://www.dci.ca/?Section=ProductsSubSection=Amateur ca/?Section=ProductsSubSection=Amateur And you can use the plain T, a more traditional signal divider and various combination of band-pass cavity layouts. Thanks for your time and for the probably obvious answer I'm not sure of. Regards Ross KC7RJK be more worried when you feel sure of yourself. cheers, skipp
Re: [Repeater-Builder] Dual receivers on one antenna for RX only site
Gary Schafer wrote: Quarter wave length cables are the thing to use to couple the cavities together at the antenna connection side of them. The uhf cavity gets a cable that is a quarter wave length at the VHF frequency and the VHF cavity gets a cable that is a quarter wave length at the UHF frequency. These connect to a T connector at the antenna line. This is the same way that you connect TX and RX cavities of a duplexer to an antenna. The UHF cavity loop provides a short circuit at the VHF frequency but the quarter wave cable from it transforms the short to an open (high impedance) at the T connection so you get no attenuation of the VHF signal there. The VHF signal then passes to the VHF cavity as if the UHF cavity was not there. The same thing happens to the UHF signal going to the other cavity. I've never heard of that, but it makes sense Without the proper length cables between the cavities and the antenna T connector both UHF and VHF signals will be attenuated depending on the luck of the cable length. The quarter wave length cable is the electrical length. It you are not combining the UHF and VHF signals with cavities then a signal splitter should be used. Even a TV cable type splitter will work ok for this. Don't worry about it being 75 ohms rather than 50 ohms. Without a splitter one receiver can load the input of the other considerably (depending on the luck of cable lengths) if just a simple T is used to connect the antenna to the two receivers. I know of a system that has 2 VHF receivers tied to one antenna with a 'T' connector and random coax-deliberately. At the T junction, the receivers need *many* uV of signal...plus the squelch is all the way tight. Too many problems with out-of-town junk on the input. So it has many rx's and a big voter. It proves your point-if you just use a 'T' connector, it'll be deaf as a doorknob.
Re: [Repeater-Builder] Dual receivers on one antenna for RX only site
OK, question... If you put a cable which is 1/4-wavelength at VHF between the T and the UHF cavity, it's 3/4-wavelength at UHF. Since any odd multiple of a quarter wavelength will invert the impedance, what will this really accomplish on the UHF cavity side? The dual-band diplexers are usually high-pass/low-pass arrangements, and lose something like 0.2 dB while providing 40 dB or more isolation. Assuming you get a real one, and not something made with PIM-prne materials, would this not be a safer bet? Or, am I missing something? (It's happened before...) 73, Paul, AE4KR - Original Message - From: Gary Schafer To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 4:53 PM Subject: RE: [Repeater-Builder] Dual receivers on one antenna for RX only site The UHF cavity loop provides a short circuit at the VHF frequency but the quarter wave cable from it transforms the short to an open (high impedance) at the T connection so you get no attenuation of the VHF signal there. The VHF signal then passes to the VHF cavity as if the UHF cavity was not there. The same thing happens to the UHF signal going to the other cavity...
[Repeater-Builder] Programing a RITRON PATRIOT RRX450
Hi DId anyone sort out wwho could do this work? --- In Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com, Jack Hayes oversc...@... wrote: Hi Jerry The guy I dealt with is/was a dealer and set one up for me for $25 plus shipping. I don't have the equipment to do it and since he doe them often I figured I'd get it done right the first time. Thanks much! Jack --- On Thu, 8/7/08, ve3...@... ve3...@... wrote: From: ve3...@... ve3...@... Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Re: RITRON PATRIOT RRX450 To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Date: Thursday, August 7, 2008, 6:35 AM Jack my model is rr-450 ., no x., what do you need? Jerry VE3 EXT
Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Dual receivers on one antenna for RX only site
Ross Johnson wrote: Thanks for the reply’s everyone. That cleared it up for sure. I will go ahead and build the T to cavity cables to one electrical wave length for the other band. And is that ¼ wave plus velocity factor of cable? Which will be FSJ1. Actually, it's 1/4-wave times the velocity factor, sorta. If the VF is, say, 85%, then you multiply the 1/4-wave by .85. Also, you can use any ODD multiple of a 1/4-wave: 3/4, 1-1/4, 1-3/4, etc. It'll be a real pain to try to connect to that 6 long(-ish) UHF 1/4-wave cable! Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Repeater-Builder/ * Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional * To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Repeater-Builder/join (Yahoo! ID required) * To change settings via email: repeater-builder-dig...@yahoogroups.com repeater-builder-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: repeater-builder-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [Repeater-Builder] Dual receivers on one antenna for RX only site
At 3/9/2010 20:12, you wrote: OK, question... If you put a cable which is 1/4-wavelength at VHF between the T and the UHF cavity, it's 3/4-wavelength at UHF. Since any odd multiple of a quarter wavelength will invert the impedance, what will this really accomplish on the UHF cavity side? Doesn't matter at UHF, since the cavity looks like (hopefully something close to) 50 + j0 ohms @ UHF, so the cable length has no effect (other than plain ol' cable loss) @ UHF. At VHF, the short at the UHF cavity connector (I'll take Gary's word that it looks like a short off-resonance, though to be sure you'd want to put the can on a VNA to get the actual phase angle at the connector) needs to be transformed to an open at the T so it has no effect VHF. The short-to-open transformation @ VHF is accomplished with a 1/4 wavelength of coax @ VHF. The dual-band diplexers are usually high-pass/low-pass arrangements, and lose something like 0.2 dB while providing 40 dB or more isolation. Assuming you get a real one, and not something made with PIM-prne materials, would this not be a safer bet? It's true you wouldn't need to mess with cable lengths if a cross-band diplexer were used, but OTOH it would be another piece of hardware in the system that really isn't necessary, since the cavities are already there. Plus if you're really worried about PIM, you'd probably have to move up to something like a cross-band coupler from TX-RX, which IIRC runs over $300. Bob NO6B
[Repeater-Builder] MSR2000 UHF exciter (update)
Hello again. So after messing with the exciter. (last post on this topic the exciter only put out .1 mw) The exciter will put out, 300mw to the input of FL101. This is just a simple tune up. But FL101 blocks the RF 'since it seems to be out of range'. Can the filter be re-build, changed, by passed, and a external filter used, etc? Also, at this point. Anyone have a UHF exciter that will play nice at 440.300 that they want to sell? or trade for a exciter that plays nice in the upper 70cm range? Thanks -Jason
RE: [Repeater-Builder] MSR2000 UHF exciter (update)
Jason, You definitely should not bypass FL101, because it performs an important function. Although the service manual does not provide any information about tuning FL101, the schematic diagram reveals that it contains four helical resonators that do appear to have tuning slugs which act as variable capacitors. As you have noted, the stock tuning favors the 450-470 MHz band for which the station is designed. I have not done this myself, but perhaps other readers can advise you on the means and method of adjusting FL101 to pass a carrier near 440 MHz. You will likely have to carefully remove the filter cover in order to reach the slugs. 73, Eric Lemmon WB6FLY -Original Message- From: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com [mailto:repeater-buil...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of kc7stw Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 8:49 PM To: Repeater-Builder@yahoogroups.com Subject: [Repeater-Builder] MSR2000 UHF exciter (update) Hello again. So after messing with the exciter. (last post on this topic the exciter only put out .1 mw) The exciter will put out, 300mw to the input of FL101. This is just a simple tune up. But FL101 blocks the RF 'since it seems to be out of range'. Can the filter be re-build, changed, by passed, and a external filter used, etc? Also, at this point. Anyone have a UHF exciter that will play nice at 440.300 that they want to sell? or trade for a exciter that plays nice in the upper 70cm range? Thanks -Jason
