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Boulder Amateur
Television Club
TV Repeater's
REPEATER
September, 2021
2ed edition, issue #87
BATVC web site: www.kh6htv.com
ATN web site: www.atn-tv.com

Jim Andrews, KH6HTV, editor - [email protected] www.kh6htv.com

Wyoming Section ARRL Hamvention Cancelled:

This convention was scheduled to take place on Saturday, Oct. 9th in Cheyenne,
Wyoming. It was to be hosted by the Shy-Wy Amateur Radio Club. The BATVC was
planning to have a display table at the convention demoing live digital ATV. We were
also on the technical program to give a talk about "High Definition, Digital Amateur
TV". We just received the following e-mail from Bob, N7WY, one of the organizers.

"Last night (9/5) the WY Ham Con committee met via Zoom and discussed the conven-
tion going forward for Oct 2021. We owe a large payment to the Laramie County Event
Center at Archer, WY this week that is not refundable. The group agreed that we have
some portions of the event that are in excellent shape, and other areas that are behind.
Also the rising concerns about COVID-19 again and hosting an indoor event made us
question what our overall attendance would be. It seems these same anxieties make it
challenging to obtain sponsors and vendors or entice swap meet exhibitors The group of
10 people decided that it would be best to pull the plug for the October 2021 event at this
time."

Hi-Des Firmware Issues: We have a major problem with

equipment now coming from Hi-Des in Taiwan. Often times it is being shipped with
Low Latency firmware installed. Hi-Des is trying to sell to the drone market and long
latency (i.e. delay) with digital video is a major deterrent for drone pilots. Unfortunately
the low latency firmware does not meet DVB-T commercial broadcast standards. Thus, a
Hi-Des, low latency DVB-T signal will not decode in other manufacturer's DVB-T
receivers, nor Hi-Des receivers with standard firmware. It can only be received by a Hi-
Des receiver with the special firmware installed. Likewise a Hi-Des receiver with the low
latency firmware will not decode a broadcast standard DVB-T transmission. This makes
it incompatible with DVB-T Amateur TV repeaters which all try to adhere to broadcast
standards. I have had to deal recently consulting with several hams who experienced non
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functioning Hi-Des equipment which they purchased and it traced back to the wrong
firmware being installed. We discussed this issue back in April in our newsletter #75. I
recommend everyone re-read it. If you are experiencing such issues, contact Calvin
Yang at Hi-Des ([email protected] ) and request he send you the proper firmware.
You will need to follow the detailed instructions in the manual to install the correct
firmware.
Jim, KH6HTV, Boulder, CO

More ATV DX worked by members

of the ATV DX Midwest Group

Pictured above on the left is KC8LMT in Flint Michigan being received by Bill, W8URI
in Mt Giliad Ohio on Sunday, 5 September 2021. On the right above is KC8LMT also
being received by Charles, WB8LGA, in Morrow County, Ohio. Both of these DX
contacts were 230-240 mile contacts on 70cm A5.

ATV News from DAYTON, OHIO: Troubleshooting the

Comark amplifier went well. I replaced two bipolar transistors (SD-1490-1), a board-
mounted pot and resistor within the bias circuit, a tantalum capacitor and a 24 VDC fan
that had bearing noise. The sagging RF output ended up being isolated to the Comark's
driver chassis. This amplifier uses a total of eight SD1490-1's, four within the driver
chassis that has two RF PC boards in series and the final amplifier chassis that has a pair
of RF PC boards running in parallel. I was able to pick up a "donor" final amplifier
chassis for $90 on e-bay for the purpose of salvaging two of the four transistors in the
donor to use in the ailing driver amplifier. These transistors are normally $120 apiece, so
the donor amplifier ended up being a good buy, as we now have two additional transistors
in the event of any future transistor failures.
Dave, AH2AR, Dayton
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DESIGN APPROACHES for

MICROWAVE TRANSVERTERS
How we build our home-brew transverters is often dictated by what we find in our ham
shack junk boxes, or at our local ham club swapfest.
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This is one approach taken by Bill, K0RZ, and

Don, N0YE. The key element that makes this
feasible is finding a Transfer Relay. This is a
four port coaxial relay which allows one to
switch direction of a component, such as an
amplifier. Doing this allows one to minimize
the parts count of all other components. Now
the transverter works either as a transmitter or
receiver, simply by reversing the connections to
the single amplifier. T/R switching at the IF
frequency is also accomplished in the IF
Transceiver. If using the transverter for digital
TV, an additional SPDT coax relay would be required to switch between the DVB-T
modulator and receiver. Transfer relays, such as shown here can be found on the internet
for about $100.

This is the approach taken by Jim, KH6HTV, for his 5.8 & 10GHz transverters. The
disadvantage is that the parts count is now higher. Only one conventional coax relay is
required. One advantage is a good low noise preamp can now be used. Typically the
amplifier used as the power amplifier will have a higher noise figure. For the
K0RZ/N0YE arrangement, the single amplifier could however be a low noise LNA, but
the max. output power would be limited. With the KH6HTV arrangement, the power
amplifier could in fact be a high power amplifier putting out several Watts. For the
KH6HTV arrangement for DTV, the IF receiver can be left on all the time. The low
level leakage across the coax relay in the transmit mode will still give enough rf to be
detected by the receiver to allow it to monitor the rf output signal.
Jim, KH6HTV, Boulder, CO
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Pipe Cap Microwave Filters:

Recently on the Boulder ATV net there was a lot of
discussion about band-pass filters made from copper
plumbing hardware. Several hams, including DJ6EP,
DC0DA & WA5VJB have written about them in the
past. A great summary with lots of design curves is
found on Paul Wade's, W1GHZ, web site:
www.w1ghz.org Check out his article "Pipe-Cap
Filters Revisited". 13 pages with lots of design and
construction details.
While on Paul's web site, browse through it. Lots of info for folks interested in ham
microwaves.

(photo from DEM spec. sheet)

Down-East Microwave 10 GHz

Pre-Amplifier - Product Review
A key building block for any microwave transverter is a good, low-noise, pre-amplifier,
or often referred to as an LNA or Low Noise Amplifier. If a pre-amp is not used, then the
noise figure of a transverter is no better than the RF to IF conversion loss of the down-
converting mixer, which is typically 6dB or worse.

Two suppliers of microwave pre-amps for the amateur radio market are Kuhne Electronic
in Germany ( https://shop.kuhne-electronic.com/kuhne/en/ ) and Down-East Microwave
in the USA ( https://www.downeastmicrowave.com/ ). Kuhne offers a large selection of
pre-amps for 144MHz thru an astonishing 76GHz. For the 3cm, 10GHz band, they offer
four models with prices of the order of 209 - 229 €. Down-East Microwave (DEM)
TV Rptrs Rptr-87.doc (9/14/2021, kh6htv) p. 6 of 12

offers pre-amps for 50MHz thru 10GHz. For 10GHz, their pre-amp costs $150
assembled, or $105 in kit form.

I recently purchased the DEM, 10GHz pre-amp kit. The model number is L3-2ULNA.
The DEM specs. are minimal and consist of only: Frequency range = 10 - 10.5GHz,
Gain = 22dB, Noise Figure = 0.8dB, Supply Voltage = 7 - 16Vdc at < 50mA. DEM says
the LNA was designed by Texas microwave legend, Al Ward, W5LUA using PHEMPT
technology. The DEM spec. sheet does include this photo below showing the internal
construction.

(photo from DEM spec. sheet)

The pc board is very well designed and built on thin, microwave quality substrate with
gold plating. The reverse side is a solid ground plane, The rf input is on the left and the
output is on the right. SMA connectors are used. DC power comes in via a feed-thru
capacitor on the upper right. The circuitry is seen to consist of two, RF, FET transistors
in cascade. In the upper right is a 78L05, +5V voltage regulator. The 8 pin IC is a 7660
+5V to -5V switching regulator to provide negative gate bias voltage. In the upper
center are seen two mini trim pots for independently setting the gate voltages for the two
FETs.
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DEM provides a very nice kit. It comes with a well written set of assembly/test
instructions. All of the various tiny parts come in a sealed plastic tray which is well
marked to ID the contents. The mechanical parts for the enclosure are well made.

I was able to assemble and test the pre-amp in one evening. However, a word of caution,
this pre-amp is built with surface mount components (SMD) and some of them are very
tiny. Several are 0805 size and one resistor is 0603. I had to put on two pairs of
magnifying reading glasses to see the markings on the FETs to be able to orient them
properly. The bottom line -- If you are not comfortable assembling tiny SMD parts, then
you are well advised to not purchase the kit, but spend an extra $50 to buy a completely
assembled and tested pre-amp from DEM.

The initial test procedure is setting the proper DC gate bias for each FET. The 1 KΩ trim
pots are adjusted to set the FET's drain voltage to +2Vdc and drain current to about 10
mA. There are no other adjustments to be made. For mine, the current drain from a
+12Vdc supply was 22mA. At this point, you should now have a working pre-amp.
W5LUA did provide on the pc board a few tiny stub pads which could be jumpered in/out
if one wanted to do some really fine tuning of the frequency response and/or noise figure.
I did not make any changes, but took the pre-amp "as is".
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My first test of the amplifier was to measure the gain, S21. I used my 30 year old,
Wiltron 5447A, network analyzer which covers from 10MHz to 20GHz. This was the
response with the top cover not yet installed. However, when I placed the cover on the
amplifier, it took off oscillating. This is a very common problem with microwave
amplifiers. The small metal box, when completely closed up makes an excellent, high Q
cavity resonator.

At my old company, Picosecond Pulse Labs, we built extremely broadband amplifiers

with -3dB bandwidths extending from a few kHz up to the microwave range with some
as high as 60GHz. We had the same oscillating issue. We solved it by using what we
coined "Magic Rubber". This was a special EM absorber material containing carbon and
ferrites. I still had in my ham shack some left over magic rubber from PSPL. I cut a
rectangular strip of it and attached it to the lid of the DEM preamp. The magic rubber
comes with an adhesive backing. This solved the oscillation problem with the DEM
preamp.

Now, the ? question remains -- Why didn't DEM include some Q damping material in
their kit ? How many hams out there building these kits have built oscillators rather than
amplifiers ? If they don't have the proper instrumentation, they probably don't realize
they have an oscillating amplifier on their hands. Also, what about buying an assembled
amplifier from DEM. Did they simply test the amplifier with the cover lid off and then
put the cover on and ship it ? Or do they put an rf absorber in their assembled units ?
TV Rptrs Rptr-87.doc (9/14/2021, kh6htv) p. 9 of 12

S21 vs. Frequency: sweep 0.01 to 20 GHz, 1 GHz/div. Pin = -36dBm

Vertical scale = 5dB/div. 0dB reference line is 3 divisions up from the bottom.

So, let's go back to testing the finished product with the magic rubber installed. In the
above S21 photo, I am sweeping over the full range up to 20GHz. The amplifier is seen
to have it's peak gain at 8GHz with a second peak at 10GHz. On the lower slope it still
has appreciable gain at 5.8GHz.

This is the S21 Gain over X band from 8 to 12 GHz. 500 MHz/div. The vertical scale is
5dB/div. The 0 dB reference line is 3 divisions from the bottom. Pin = -36dBm
TV Rptrs Rptr-87.doc (9/14/2021, kh6htv) p. 10 of 12

Return Loss measurement - sweep from 8 to 12 GHz, 500 MHz/div, Pin = -36dBm
Input S11 (left) & Output S22 (right), 3dB/div, 0dB ref. line is 1 div. from top

The above photos show the amplifier's gain plus input and output return loss sweeping
over X band from 8 to 12 GHz. At the center of the 3cm ham band, 10.25GHz, S21 =
20dB, S11 = -13dB and S22 = -6dB.

The next test was to determine the max. output power capability of the amplifier. The
Wiltron network analyzer in the CW mode was used as the signal source, plus a
Weinschel rotary step attenuator was used to set the rf input levels. RF power was
measured using an HP-432A power meter with an HP-8478B thermistor power head.
The -1dB gain compression was found to be P(-1dB) = -9 dBm. The max. saturated
output was found to be P(max) = -8 dBm. Thus this amplifier is strictly for low level,
weak signals.

The final test was for Noise Figure. An HP-8970A Noise Figure meter was used with a
Noise Com model NC346B (0.01 - 18GHz) noise source head. The 8970A only
measures up to 1.5GHz. Thus a down-converter was setup using a local oscillator, mixer
and band-pass filter to reject the unwanted sideband. The noise figure was measured at
10.36 GHz. The results were 21.7dB gain and 1.06dB noise figure. This NF value was
felt to be quite acceptable.
Jim, KH6HTV, Boulder, CO
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UNIQUE ANTENNA ROTATOR for WORKING

SATELLITES: ATVer, Richard, N2SPI, in Greene, NY has come up with a
unique mobile antenna system for working satellites. It gives him directionality and the
ability to rotate during satellite passes.

The above photo shows the satellite

an t e n na s y s t e m I b ui l t f or m y
mobile station. It uses t w o M 2
Eggbeaters, one for a 70cm uplink, the
other for a 2m downlink. These are mag-
mounted to my car at a fixed elevation
of approximately 20 degrees. This
allows me to point the RHCP lobe
coming off the top of these antennas
directly at the satellite, more or less. The
trick is to remember to drive my car in a This photo shows the satellite “rig" I use
tight circle so as to keep these somewhat inside the car. It is basically an Icom IC-9700
directional antennas aimed at the with an Asus Netbook PC strapped to the top
satellite. In addition, the mag-mount inside a ”sun shield”. The PC runs SatPC32 to
feature allows for quick setup and tear provide CAT control of the IC-9700 so as
down in bad weather. to “nullify” Doppler frequency shifts.

W0BTV Details: Inputs: 439.25MHz, analog NTSC, VUSB-TV;

441MHz/6MHz BW, DVB-T & 1243MHz/6MHz BW, DVB-T
Outputs: Channel 57 --- 423MHz/6MHz BW, DVB-T, or optional 421.25MHz, analog
VUSB-TV. Also, secondary transmitter, FM-TV output on 5.905 GHz (24/7).
Operational details in AN-51a Technical details in AN-53a. Available at:
https://kh6htv.com/application-notes/
TV Rptrs Rptr-87.doc (9/14/2021, kh6htv) p. 12 of 12

W0BTV ATV Net: We hold a social ATV net on Thursday afternoon at 3 pm local
Mountain time. The net typically runs for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. A DVD ham travelogue is
usually played for about one hour before and 1/2 hour after the formal net. ATV nets are
streamed live using the British Amateur TV Club's server, via:
https://batc.org.uk/live/kh6htvtvr or n0ye. We use the Boulder ARES (BCARES) 2
meter FM voice repeater for intercom. 146.760 MHz ( -600kHz, 100 Hz PL tone
required to access).

Newsletter Details: This is a free newsletter distributed electronically via

e-mail to ATV hams. The distribution list has now grown to over 450. News and
articles from other ATV groups are welcomed. Permission is granted to re-distribute it
and also to re-print articles, as long as you acknowledge the source. All past issues are
archived at: https://kh6htv.com/newsletter/

ATV HAM ADS

Free advertising space is offered here to ATV hams, ham clubs or ARES
groups. List here amateur radio & TV gear For Sale - or - Want to Buy.

Microwave Hams -- looking for a source of microwave components, either coaxial or

waveguide? Check out www.westernetestsystems.com in Hana, Wyoming. Phil
Schnabel has been in business since 1993. He has a huge selection of used equipment to
chose from.
Jim, KH6HTV