VK1KRF
Hi I'm Kerry, welcome to my Comm-Shack

Well Great things are afoot in the realms of amateur radio in Australia and the promotion of this truly fascinating and diverse activity. This website is here primarily to spark interrest at the grass roots where there is a blur between electronics computing and radio.

 

The Canberra Region Amateur Radio Club is ticking along nicely since the foundation license was introduced numbers have increased and the number of interrested people coming to the Farrer radio room open night has increased. The Club Radio Room opens every second and fourth tuesday of the month for club members and anyone else interrested in electronics and radio. It is an informal play with radios kits homebrew and whatever else is brought along

 

A Photo Gallery of my Radio masts etc..
My recent remote APRS digipeater site.
The JOTA event at the Comm Shack
If You don't like my website Click here to tell me about it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Member

My QTH is Canberra Australia where I have a Basic HF Station and the more elaborate Satellite gear, however my property in the High Country of the Tinderry Ranges is the Prime spot for HF work. The electrical noise out there is virtually nonexistent and there's plenty of room for an antenna farm. The gear in my shack is as old as the hills. That's the way I like it. I am collecting Electrical and Electronic equipment for a Prospective Museum of Electro Technology Which may one day be affiliated with the proposed Belconnen Naval Radio Station museum.

Some of My Boatanchors

Eddystone HF to VHF
Eddystone VHF to UHF

Beckman Berkley LF to HF
FRG9600 (PC Controlled)
Swan 500  XC HF
Kenwood 2M all mode

Icom IC211 2M all mode
Trio (Kenwood) TS520 HF
Icom IC502 mobile 6m ssb
Various Phillips FM900's
Kenwood TS520 HF
Winradio 1000i (Rack PC )
FRG7 (What a great old radio)
Yaesu FRDX400
Yaesu DTDX401
Yaesu FT707

Der Comm Shack. Click Hotspots
Location:        QF43QX
Latitude:        149 23' 05" E
Longtitude:    036 02' 26" S
Altitude:        1100 Metres
When I said Shack I meant SHACK! This place is an old timber house of aroud 105 Years old that evolved from a cottage made with hand hewn corner posts etc.. There's not much left of the original house but it's got a Great fireplace and a prefect loction for radio.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Quarter Wave Coaxial Transformer
Matches 75 to 50 Ohm for a given band.

Down Converter for 2.4Ghz
using an ex Pay-TV antenna.  New info on the Connifer and Pacific Monolithics

Helical antenna for 2.4Ghz
using the downconverter module from the connifer Pay TV antenna described above and some electrical conduit
I have made a more compact package, perfect for a small pan/tilt camera drive.

RS485 for shack automation.

Yeah Yeah, you may say, It's been done before. The difference is that you can re discover what it means to be a 'Home Brew Ham"
Here is a holistic approach to automation in the shack with a huge list of benefits. Here is the Power point document that I used for my
presentation at the One-Tech 2002 Symposium in canberra Hosted by the VK1 Division of the Wireless institute of Australia and organised
by Peter Ellis (VK1KEP)

Ckick here to go to the main page of my Shack Automation Project


 

Radio Mod's and Downloads

The radio's I have been hacking with include:

 Phillips FM900

Both UHF and VHF. Nice radio's easy to work with and lots of data on them on the web. I have made avaliable for download the ACT-RED eprom images in binary format for both 70cm and 2m which are the VK1Division generally accepted frequency assignents. The VK2 is there to try out as well. If you want to edit them you will need the software which you can get elsewhere. If you just want to blow a rom then the .bin file is ready as a binary file for your eprom programmer.

 
  Notes File
  ACT VK1 2m FM900 with Remote head ACT_RED.ZIP
  Channel List for ACT_RED 2M Channels.txt
  ACT VK1 70cm FM900 with Remote Head U or W1 ACT70CM.ZIP
  Channel List for ACT 70cm Not Here Yet
  VK2 2m FM900 with Remote Head VK2.ZIP

Motorola Syntrx

There's a lot more here and a lot more to come so click here to check it out

 

Motorola Syntor

75 Watt Uhf Version. I hope to use the final amp and TR switching as a booster for other radio's .
These are not to be tinkered with unless you are carefull and have a Chumpy power supply

Motorola MX300

5 Watt Handheld UHF and VHF Versions. These are a little heavy but also typical Motorola Bulletproff. Recently I have learned that the people that host the Batwings website have done a great job deciphering the workings of the MX300 synthesiser module. The one thing left is the tricks associated with reconfiguring and external squelch etc.. Soon I will post some blurb on how to get these radios actually operational!!

For now you can see a photo gallery with some useful info it Right HERE.


 
 

Software projects (Mostly VB)

To run these programs you will need Windows 95 or better and VBrun400.dll which goes in your windows/system folder. There are no installers and no ini files so they will run anywhere.

Wavelength Calculator

Wavelength Calculator with a difference. This lill ripper is a great tool second only to a ruler when playing with Quarter Wave transformers coaxial colinears or radiators. Currently this is a 32bit application written in visual basic 4. The main features are that the program automatically updates results when input data is changed. resonant segments are corrected for length to diameter ratio using this data in excell or as a graph. I will copmile a 16 bit version  soon.

 

To download click on Kerry's Wavelength calculator

You will need VB40032.DLL Just plonk it in the windows\system directory

Axial mode (Endfire) Helical design

Axial mode (Endfire) Helical design program. This beauty conforms to my view that the command line method of application programming is dead to all but a few hardcore punch card rogrammers. Just as Morse code is dead to all but the competitive QRP'ers. (That's a joke OK). The point is that all you have to do is enter the design frequency and number of turns and the rest is up to a couple of slide bars that limit the physical design to the range that will ensure the antenna will function in a circularly polarised way with the major lobe on the axis.

To download click on Kerry's Helical Design Program

This also requires VB40032.DLL in the windows/system directory

Some more downloads that I think are useful.

Tube Dimensions
If you want to make Transmission line baluns, coaxial transformers etc.. then you may find a list of precision tube stock and copper pipe stock that shows inside and outside diameters in millimeters. Click here to get it

Dielectric Constants
If you need to know the dielectric constant of an obscure product being used on your matching stripline or whatever then heres a list in alphabetical order that's bound to have it. So if your transmissiion line runs through a vat of molasses then you need this file here. Some of the items are quoted at specific temperatures, In these cases the degree symbol may look like a grey box. It's a font problem that I don't intend to fix at this stage.

Syntor programming software. I'ts going to be great to get a 75Watt syntor 70cm rig up and running. I'll need a real big power supply!

 

Motorolla MX300 Analysis program. These grotty little radio's are not letting their sectrets up without a fight. I have worked out the frequency codeplug memory layout relating to channel and TX/RX memory. The synthesiser data is still elluding me. Latest news is that the chaps at Batwings have worked it out and have presented all of the data on their website. So I'm not going to pursue this further

Disclaimer

all of the material on this website with the exception of a few animated GIF's is my own original content. If you believe any images here to be a breach of someone elses copyright then please let me know. When you do I would appreciate some proof of the matter.

Any use of the information contained on my site comes with the usual "Do so at your own risk". I accept no liability for any problems you have with my information and designs. If you want to pursue any greivances please click here

Netiquite

The information on this site is avaliable free for download and personal use. It must not be used for any commercial gain in any way. Please don't publish any of my work on any other site.

Having said that, I would like to point out that Knowledge, Information and Ideas sould always be free to all for whatever puropse. It's just the thought of someone mass producing PCB's designed by me that would Piss me off.

 

Links

Canberra Region Amaterur Radio Club

Wireless Institute of Australia

 


Please note the anti spam inserts inside the e-mail ----> e-mail: Riches*nospam*@*nospam*netspeed.com.au