Speaker-mics (RSM) are popular with portables (hand-helds), and it turns out that a lot of the implementations which appeared to work properly with conventional FM radios have issues on DMR portables.
The frustration in buying these things online is that sellers typically have no idea of what they are selling.
This article deals with degraded audio in a form that is often described as motor boating. Continue reading Speaker-microphones and DMR portables
This article describes an add-on to a MFJ-993B auto ATU to provide an audible alarm when reflected power exceeds a set threshold. A deficiency of the original design IMHO.
The solution uses the generic heating / cooling controller (hcctl) configured for its alarm function only, including a function to silence the alarm.
Above is the directional coupler part of the MFJ-993B. The REF test point is designed to present voltages within the range 0-5V when used within the stated power ratings. Continue reading Reflected power alarm for the MFJ-993B
This article describes my build of a Radio-Kits SWR meter (v1.1) and post implementation review.
Advertised features:
I purchased the kit some years ago, and on receiving it and reviewing the circuit I formed the view that it was likely to have unacceptable Insertion VSWR on 1.8Mhz, and probably 3.5MHz bands… so I lost interest in assembling the kit. However, I have belatedly constructed the kit, calibrated and tested it.
The kit is supplied as a PCB and parts, no casework is supplied.
The board was difficult to solder, the strain relieved ground plane connections of components have very little donut to contact for heat transfer and are much harder to solder than the other pads. The strain relief is a dubious feature that makes soldering difficult.
Above, the kit assembled in a die-cast aluminium box. An opening for the LCD was milled into the box, and holes drilled for the rest of the fit up. The kit does not lend itself to this boxing as the buttons out the top and display out the front are a problem to fit up. A poor mechanical design.
Above is the interior of the box showing the LCD display and the external BNC connectors fitted (substituted for the ubiquitous UHF connectors supplied with the kit). Continue reading Radio-Kits SWR meter – build and review
(Grebenkemper 1987) describes a directional coupler that has become very popular, especially in commercial implementation.
The simplified circuit above from Grebenkemper’s article illustrates the key elements of the directional coupler.
An important detail of the design is that the primary of the right hand transformer appears in shunt with the antenna load, and the magnetising impedance of that transformer core compromises Insertion VSWR. It is important that the magnetising impedance is sufficiently high (or the admittance sufficiently low) to not cause significant Insertion VSWR.
Continue reading Grebenkember’s original Tandem match
The project is to build a test a couple of QRP VSWR detectors by KitsAndParts.com (http://www.kitsandparts.com/bridge.php) rated at 10W.
Above are the completed kits.
Above is the schematic. The bridge uses a type of Sontheimer coupler (Sontheimer 1966) and these are commonly poorly designed. The first question is whether the magnetising impedance of T2 which appears in shunt with the load is sufficiently high to not give rise to poor insertion VSWR. Continue reading KitsAndParts.com QRP SWR bridge
I have heard ‘traditional wisdom’ that there is a timing limit imposed by the DMR protocol limit that limits radio path lengths to less than 70km.
There is indeed a limit and it is due to the 2ms guard interval between time slots, and half of that time is available for accomodation of round trip radio propagation delay (RTT), so 1ms with c0=3e8m/s gives a one way distance limit of 150km.
To put the ‘traditional wisdom’ to the test, I took a UHF DMR handheld up onto a nearby hill and successfully had a medium length QSO via the VK2RAG repeater netoworked to VK1BGT using the VK1RBM repeater.
Continue reading DMR distance limit
Our iiNet / FTTN NBN 12Mb/s service has been connected for just over a month now, and the first full month of download test results (ISP performance graphs) bears examination.
Above is a plot of the measured transfer rate of the test file from iiNet’s site. Continue reading First month of iiNet FTTN broadband Internet access
At TV upgrade I reported a change in TV antenna pointing to a different and distant transmitter, and gave a Spectrum Analyser plot at the main TV receiver.
At that time, I adjusted the antenna accurately (within 1°) based on compass heading, but antennas are not perfect and two significant path obstructions may have bearing on best signal.
I could have run up and down the ladder making small adjustments and observing amplitude or better, RF S/N on the Spectrum Analyser but that is tedious and suboptimal so I purchased a DVB signal analyser.
Importantly, a good DVB analyser gives measurement of not just signal strength, but carrier to noise (C/N) ratio (which is actually RF S/N), Bit Error Rate (BER) and Modulation Error Ratio (MER), the last two very important statistics in optimisation and validation and not available on an ordinary Spectrum Analyser.
MER is calculated as the sum of the squares of the magnitudes of the ideal symbol vectors is divided by the sum of the squares of the magnitudes of the symbol error vectors. The result, expressed as a power ratio in dB, is defined as the Modulation Error Ratio (MER).
MER is a good overall single statistic for quality, but BER is more sensitive to occasional errors, so they are both important.
Above, the DVB analyser (the red device) enables a view of measurements whilst adjusting the antenna. The analyser here is connected to the masthead amp output and of course powers the masthead amp. Continue reading TV upgrade – MER optimisation
A recent online posting gave unequivocal recommendation for the Coil32 Inductance Calculator for application to a ferrite toroidal HF current balun.
Always interested in these things, I tried to download it to evaluate it but there was rigmorol to create an account and aware that I have never downloaded a calculator that handled that specific problem at all well, I was reluctant.
They do however have some online calculators that are supposed to use the same algorithms and methods as the downloadable software, so lets review the one for a toroidal ferrite inductor.
Above is the data entry form, and warning bells sound. The “relative magnetic permeability” field is a simple scalar quantity, but the permeability of most ferrites at HF needs to be considered as a complex value (ie having real and imaginary components). Continue reading Coil32 inductance calculator
Walt Maxwell (W2DU) made much of conjugate matching in antenna systems, he wrote of his volume in the preface to (Maxwell 2001 24.5):
It explains in great detail how the antenna tuner at the input terminals of the feed line provides a conjugate match at the antenna terminals, and tunes a non-resonant antenna to resonance while also providing an impedance match for the output of the transceiver.
Walt Maxwell made much of conjugate matching, and wrote often of it as though at some optimal adjustment of an ATU there was a system wide state of conjugate match conferred, that at each and every point in an antenna system the impedance looking towards the source was the conjugate of the impedance looking towards the load.
This is popularly held to be some nirvana, a heavenly state where transmitters are “happy” and all is good. Happiness of transmitters is often given in online discussion by hams as the raison d’être for ATUs . Continue reading Walter Maxwell’s teachings on system wide conjugate matching