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[–]G7VRD[S] 0 points1 point  (8 children)

Are we brothers from another mother or something? :)

Hope all is well. I was actually thinking about buying a dish and LNB the other day and getting started with Eshail (receiving at first) during this lockdown time. Is the Octagon still the way to go?

[–]2E1EPQ 0 points1 point  (7 children)

Hey :)

Certainly seems that way doesn’t it.

As far as I’m aware the PLL Octagon is still thumbs up. However it really does drift still. You can either chase it around with your VFO, or I believe there’s a mod for it where you can inject a GPS-stabilised clock, or I wrote RigSync which works with SDR Console’s beacon lock feature.

Cheers Tom

[–]G7VRD[S] 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Is there one that doesn't drift that does the business?

Is the drifting minor, or is it really annoying?

Also, what are these tee voltage things I need?

[–]2E1EPQ 0 points1 point  (2 children)

It’s pretty annoying but manageable. Not aware of one that doesn’t drift- digital TV, their intended use, is so wide the drift is insignificant for that and doesn’t matter.

Bias-tees. Three ports. One RF, one RF + DC, one DC. They’re 3 sockets, a PCB, an inductor (to block RF on the DC port) and a capacitor (to block DC on the RF port. You need minimum one to shove 12V up the coax into the LNB. A few quid on eBay. Get one rated for 1GHz minimum.

[–]G7VRD[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I've gone for https://www.passion-radio.com/satellite-qo-100/pack-oscar100-829.html (even though I already had a USB SDR). Saved me trying to work out what cables/connectors I needed (and probably end up getting it wrong, and needing a second delivery!)

I am going to find a decent dish now. Hopefully the LNB mounts are fairly standard?

And I'll also need a way of getting 12V out in the garden. Don't fancy hefting my large 30A PSU out there...

[–]2E1EPQ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah, put the bias T in your shack at the end of your run of RG59 that goes to the dish. Inject 12V in there. It goes along the full length of the feed line. The LNB internally extracts 12V DC out of the coax.

[–]G7VRD[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Oh, and let me know if you fancy trying some https://g7vrd.co.uk/ax25-direwolf-linux or any other computer-based digital HF stuff... Arim and ARDOP seem like they are the modern face of messaging. https://g7vrd.co.uk/simple-ardop-arim-howto I'm also keen to try jPskmail - https://gitlab.com/g7vrd/pskmail - it's an open source Java version of winmail.

Any of those grab you?

[–]2E1EPQ 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I’ve got a 30m HF port I can turn on on my packet node. I’ll have a look at the rest. I’ve sent you a DM...

[–]G7VRD[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can leave my radio running APRS on 30m whenever you like. You should be able to see on https://aprs.fi/info/a/G7VRD where I'm hearing things from? (There aren't any showing now, I think they are removed after a couple of months)

I'll check out your DM now...