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PTT connected to KEY-OUT pin10 180R protection. 13.3V to main single pin power
(on board 220R are used to pass signals to the ACC pins as protection ) SMA 144 port
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Since the nice summer type weather ended here last Friday the sky turned grey and we
are back to cool windy rainy weather.
Same time ES dx Disappeared
I now strong believe the ES clouds are fed with sunny sommer weather gasses that rise up into the ionosphere...
Some time ago I bought the "Ukrainian" XVTR 144MHz
And now it works, had first contact's at 144.174 in FT8
I seached some victims for the first 144MHz contact, the whole 144- 146 empty
but still life ? or should I say robots active... on FT8 144.174
Meanwhile weather has changed again in to summer and so the propagation.
Since the K3 144 transverter is running I had remarkable good results with it and the home brew 7ele + 5 ele 4M duoband
Lots of 2m DX heard and worked with 10W since then
EI3KD 1050km GI GD G7RAU -IO79 905km OZ SM LA GM3FVM almost daily!
SM6 7 SP OK F HB9 heard DL in JN68 2x OY6BEC heard 144 70Mhz and 1296.895 mni days
Easy working DX that used to be so hard in the past 1980's when I was very active at 2m
This season was almost without 144 ES but therefore great tropo.
Delivered quick by Transverter-shop on eBay even better deal.
Very well designed high quality at low prize. It is very small and fits nicely into the K3 cabinet.
Transverters never have been so affordable ready build.
When I compare my 6m 4m and 23cm Xverter project's , nice experience but it took months and a lot € to get on air.
It's mounted on an aluminium plate 86x50x10 using 2x M2.5 M3 does not fit
86mm fits exactly between the side and KPA100 plate. I drilled carefully.. 2 3.2mm holes in the side plate 2 M3 hold the whole XVTR it can be removed very easy
High efficient RD15HVF1 Mitsubishi FET 10W RF @ 13V 1.3A about.
Real 10W RF ,0.5V drop over the connection wire and 2 header pins
Frequency stability is remarkable good with the 54MHz cristal. XV2 OFS 144 -2.25Most (all?) X-tal resonate a few kHz above the wanted frequency, no issue it is compensated with XVx OFS -2.25 for me.
No drift running WSPR or FT8
If more stability would be needed I would replace the X-tal with a Taitien VCXO if available.
Very good experience with TAITIEN 27MHz VCXO rock stable standalone 23cm PLL 1150MHz.
Unnecessary worried about cooling issues, the XVTR stay's cool after some 45 minutes FT8 tx-ing . No need for a big heatsink this 10x86x50 does the job easilly.
Easy to set up a 2nd XVTR in the K3 config the 1rst is my external 70MHz XVTR.
The output level of the KVX3 max 1.5mW is more then sufficient, 1mW for full drive.
At start the PTT-out did not work when it was connected also to the HF ACOM1000 KEY-IN.
The ACOM Key-in loads the PTT line to 5V in open state.
RX 8V was not switched in, so the RX was very deaf at first test
After unplugging the ACOM this was okay.
This is solved by connecting the XVTR PTT to an other KEY-out signal at K3IO j90 pin 10
This KEY-OUT is a true open collector in RX state RX is switched at 8V 7.3V measured.
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| KXV3 left IF-OUT X-OUT X-IN ANT-OUT ANT-IN |
I find no hardware options on the KXV3 to make automatic switching of transverters possible
The KXV144 from Elecraft must use the AUXBUS and the i.f. 28MHz port and power must be switched off and separated internally.
DIGOUT0 is set low when XVTR low power is true this is valid for all XVTR's using KVX3 DIGOUT0 can not be selected per band
I might need an AUXBUS address decoder to solve this issue.
Until now i could not find information about the AUXBUS data format. User groups possible but not yet found I.
Measured serial approx 2400b/s data burst at band change 5V TTL fan out is low.
Do i have to reinvent the wheel and experiment with Arduino / Pic to make a band decoder
Or did someone reading this already made such AUXBUS decoder ?
preferably a decoder that does not contribute negative to the noisefloor...
It is low speed serial data so the decoder clock does not have to be higher then a few kHz...
Both XVTRS use KVX3 port XVTR-IN for 28MHz Tx/Rx
The 2nd XVTR-OUT port is TX only i have an older KXV3 that has no TMP sockets for internal XVTR's
Paralleling results in extra noise and loss of 28MHz signal.
When TX-ing at one band the other XVTR is also TX-ing.
The config setting XVx ADR can select trn1-9 and Int. trn0-9 AUXBUS adresses al lot addresses!
but it can not select DIGOUT1 or 2 or BAND or XVTR port
Using diodes and transistor logic in combination with signals
present at J90 located just behind the XVTR
BAND1 j90-14, dio0 j90-18 ,
gnd j90-6 ,5V j90-20, key(PTT) j90-10
The hardware of the KXV3 has 2 relays and 2 double PIN diode switches
K1 is used to bypass ANT-IN ANT-OUT or switch them to the RF board
K2 is used to bypass XVTR-IN OUT or switch them to RF board
when a (any) XVERTER is activated in config that XVTR band is operated in low-power mode and the XVTR band relay swiches the ports to the RF board. Then XVTR-IN works tranceive at the chosen i.f. in my case 28MHz
the tx level is max "150" # 1.5mW
the XVTR-OUT is TX out only
this is as far as I could understand the K3 schematic
The 12V ( i.e. 13.3V) power is connected as pointed out in Elecraft manual for K144XVTR to the single pin soldered at the main PCB 12V. This 12V is unswitched. So the XVTR stays powered
In the K3s newer type there is a connector named XV12V could be swiched
The Elecraft KXV144 uses a BUS controller over the AUX-BUS several XVTRS are adressable.
Modern rigs all use internal device busses like I2C . Nice but a data bus can buzz.
The K3 internal bus generates a rattle bus noise when tuning the dial with antenna open at 50MHz
Best is to avoid use of fast databus and or controllers in low noise devices i think
The AUXBUS is a slow speed telemetry 2400b/s? type bus it is activated upon band change
Need to find a decoding circuit for it.
So far so good.
215042 Tx 521 ~ G8EOH PA0O -13
215045 1 0.1 673 ~ CQ G8EOH JO02
215100 Tx 521 ~ G8EOH PA0O -13
215115 -2 0.1 672 ~ CQ G8EOH JO02
215130 Tx 521 ~ G8EOH PA0O -13
215145 -5 0.1 672 ~ PA0O G8EOH R-12
215200 Tx 521 ~ G8EOH PA0O RRR
215215 -11 -0.7 676 ~ PA0O G8EOH R-12
215230 Tx 521 ~ G8EOH PA0O RRR
215245 -10 0.1 678 ~ PA0O G8EOH R-12
215300 Tx 521 ~ G8EOH PA0O RRR
215315 -9 0.1 681 ~ PA0O G8EOH R-12
215330 Tx 521 ~ G8EOH PA0O RRR
215345 -4 0.1 683 ~ PA0O G8EOH R-12
215400 Tx 521 ~ G8EOH PA0O RRR
215430 Tx 521 ~ G8EOH PA0O RRR
215445 4 0.1 685 ~ PA0O G8EOH 73
215500 Tx 521 ~ G8EOH PA0O 73
215530 Tx 521 ~ 1 QSO K3+XVTR
215545 -5 0.1 689 ~ CQ G8EOH JO02
Propagation 60m WSPR
Bands are poor but some JA7 weak heard at 50.313MHz ThursdayTemperature dropped 25C to 14C rain and wind 7bf
Also 50MHz Es is gone now .... 6m rule in the weekend no propagation still valid...
But it can not be that bad every day DP0GVN Southpole base spots 1W and tonight 0.5W
WSPR signal at 5354.70 kHz 60m
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