An ATV beacon / Repeater is now running in the building at right, furthering the coverage that would be normally be blocked due to hills and ridges from the main ATV repeater.
Input 1 is 615.25MHz Vision, 620.75MHz Sound, from the main Amateur TV repeater, ZL1BQ.
Input 2 is 1284 MHz FM video, approx 15 MHz bandwidth, with stereo intercarrier sound at 5.5MHz and 5.74MHz.
The output is 1248 MHz FM video at 10 Watts into a 10 element panel array, directed across the bulk of the city. Coverage is across 90 deg approx, so a system of 2 panel arrays for receive and another 2 for transmit are being considered.
Latest
A disgruntled user who was sharing the site was asked by the property owner to vacate the site. He did so, but also cut down the main transmission pole seemingly out of spite. The police have been informed and are considering laying a change of 'Wilful Damage'.
This means that all the transmitters have no aerial system until we can beg, borrow or have donated a replacement pole for the antenna arrays. At present, the only active transmitter is ZL1UHF APRS UI-Digi, running on a temporary 5/8 wave whip. As the elevation of the site is good, it's coverage has not been affected too much.
Most of the antennae survived, being mounted on the front frame, as the pole fell backwards missing the equipment shed. The only antenna that ended up seriously being damaged was the 615MHz LPY pointed at the main transmitter site. It's driven elements and reflector were the first thing to hit the ground, and the boom ended up looking a bit banana shaped. It has since been straightened out and repaired thanks to Ken ZL1TD.
A 23cm QRP level beacon used to run at 1297.15MHz, with a morse ident of ZL1UHF. The aerial for this is a turnstyle inside a white plastic disc, on the pole above the temporary solar panel at the right of the picture. It has been taken off air until another site can be found for it, as it was desensing the 1284 MHz FM TV receive.
Grant ZL1WTT has a number of ATV experiments, a few of which are designed for the Whitford site in mind. Check out his home page for more...!
A 6m Beacon also runs from this site, with a Morse Ident of 'ZL1VHF Whitford RF73MB ZL1VHF', RF73MB being the grid locator. It's frequency is on or near 50.043MHz. It however suffers a bit from temperature drift, as it can get very hot up inside that building in summer.
*UPDATE* The beacon transmitter has been replaced with a commercial 'Tait' brand 'A' Band transmitter section set to 50.043MHz. The unit should be quite stable now.
The building is based on a 'garden shed', but with the panels screwed to solid wood wall frames which are then bolted to each other, and the roof section. This modular approach allows additional sections to be added, should the need arise.
An extra 50cm of wall height is planned to be added, between the roofline and the existing walls.
A pair of extraction fans on the East (Left) and a remote controlled camera on the West (right) are also in the plans at some point, as well as thermal insulation to try and keep the heat down in Summer. The extra height will also allow a taller rack for more equipment inside the building, and tall people (i.e. me) to stand up straight in places other than the centre of the roof.
USB to Serial GPS Modification
When you have a TinyTrak, you really do need a GPS to help run it. I managed to scrounge several UBS GPSs intended for use with laptop computers, etc, and with a bit of tinkering, managed to extract the serial RS232 data from them.All You Ever Wanted to Know About NICAM but were Afraid to Ask
New Zealand uses the Nicam 728 system to provide a stereo sound system.For information on spam and BAIT go here here.
One of the things that Amateur TV beacon use are Teletext Pages.
These Philips SAA5050 powered pages have their page contents stored in EPROM.
Pin outs for various EPROMs are here.
Pace MSS100 Sat Rx as 23 cm Rx
The Auckland ATV group had access to some surplus Pace MSS100 sat receivers, and a couple of Uniden SQ500e receivers.Space Shuttle Views
Found some Space Shuttle stills, which seem to be still grabs from the cameras on / around the Space Shuttle.
Not sure how long they will last, so it may not work during some periods.
NZPO Type 100 phone circuit
In the days before Push-Button phones, New Zealand used to use rotary type phones, which are now starting to become collector's items. Finding circuits for them is now rather hard, so this scanned and tidied up one may be of use.
WX-200 Weather Station
One of my interests at the moment is a WX-200 Weather Station. It has the ability to measure-: