On line Newsletter

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The 50MHz and Up Group
of Northern California, Inc.

Many of the members have built their own transverters or other radio equipment, and are operating at radio frequencies as high as 243 GHz. There are also members involved in laser, satellite, moonbounce and DX on many bands.
 

1. To promote the use of the 50 MHz and up amateur bands by licensed amateurs for scientific research and education; 
2. To aid the public at large by providing technically advanced yet volunteer emergency communication services and aiding both governmental agencies and other emergency providers such as the Red Cross; 
3. To elevate the technical standards of amateur equipment and operation; 
4. To aid the Federal Communications Commission in enforcement of laws and regulations with respect to amateur radio operation, and to aid in the investigation and suppression of television, radio, and device interference; 
5. To receive gifts and bequests; to own, control, buy, lease, rent, sell, acquire, hold, convey, mortgage, hypothecate, and otherwise deal with or dispose of personal property, particularly, but not limited to, radio communication equipment in order to further its purposes as enumerated above; 
6. Do each and everything necessary, or suitable, or proper for the accomplishment of the purposes or the attainment of any one or any of the subjects herein enumerated or conducive to or expedient for the interest or benefit of said corporation and to contract accordingly; and in addition exercise all powers, rights, and privileges necessary or incidental to the purpose for which said corporation is organized, or the activities in which it is engaged.

We were donated some RF test equipment by Tay Howard's estate. This is a lending library and if you have a ham project or repair and need the use of a signal generator, power meter, spectrum analyzer, or noise figure meter, then contact Goran and arrange to borrow the equipment. We have a list of the equipment up on the Members Only page.

We have received written permission to post a published article from Applied Microwaves & Wireless Magazine, that appeared in the Feb 2001 issue. The article is by Richard Kurzrok and gives you all the machining dimensions you will need to make a transition for any waveguide band from WR229 through WR42. These include the exact tuning screw placements.

click here to get the article

The 10GHz beacon/repeater/linear translator is up and running!

The passband noise is about 20 db below the beacon signal.

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Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 7PM PST

The next meeting of the 50 MHz and up Group meets this Thursday, 7PM at the National Semiconductor main meeting room.
Topics for this meeting are:

• Club business
• Club Swap! Bring some stuff to swap or sell! If you have any projects, please discuss or bring it in for show and tell.
• Jim, N9JIM, will talk about successful eme contacts made from Yuri's night.
• Goran, AD6IW, will discuss his new amplifier design for 23cm.
• We will also discuss details of the upcoming contest season and hopefully hear from the contest sub-committee.(Ron, Jim and Goran)

Kevin Hague
N5XSA

The location will be at the NSC meeting room in Building E. Turn right on SEMICONDUCTOR DRIVE, first light, about 1/4 mile west of Lawrence Expressway. Drive to the parking garage, turn left, follow the drive to the right and park.

Jeffrey Pawlan has agreed to post for download his presentation from the February 7th meeting.

The powerpoint "Next Generation Radios and Signal Processing Software" and it's associated files are available for download provided the user gives credit to Jeffrey Pawlan and Alberto di Bene.

To view the power point presentation:

1. Download the file here: SDRpresentationWA6KBL.zip
2. Extract zip file into a new directory or to the desktop
3. Once extracted, open the "SDR presentation WA6KBL.ppt" which is located within the "SDR Presentations" directory. Use Microsoft Powerpoint or Microsoft Powerpoint Viewer (availible here: Powerpoint viewer free download)
4. Press F5 on the keyboard or select from the menu View -> Slide Show
5. Within slide fourteen, an option to run waveform animations is shown. Clicking this should open a browser window which will run a Java instance. If Microsoft Internet Explorer is used, a click to the browser security prompt(s) will be needed to run this script properly. If you are using Firefox, no additional steps should be needed. In some cases, IE may not work and a try with Firefox may be needed.
6. Java and Adobe Acrobat are required.
7. Enjoy!

Will Jensby Receives Lifetime Achievement Award
During the September 2007 meeting, Will Jensby (W0EOM) was presented the 50Mhz and Up Lifetime Achievement Award by Brian Yee (W6BY) and Goran Popovic (AD6IW) for his achievements on the microwave bands.

Some of these achievements include records on 47, 75, 120 and 122Ghz bands. He has helped other Hams get onto higher frequencies, especially 24 and 47Ghz.

Congratulations Will!




Photo. From left to right: Goran, Will and Brian.

This weekend Miguel W6YLZ, Dan K6NKC, and Bernardo XE2HWB and I participated in the ARRL 10GHz and Up Cumulative contest from Baja California, Mexico, operating at two spots along the Baja Sur (south) coast. Miguel, Dan and Bernardo set-up on the Vizcaino Peninsula in DL27, while I continued another 430km down the Baja coast to the small town of Puerto San Carlos in DL34wt.

San Carlos sits at the tip of a western bulge in the Baja Peninsula and has been visited by hams before, including Jack N6XQ and Chip N6CA who reported the reception of both two meter amateur and commercial FM stations during their visits there back in the mid 90s. Jack later returned with 10GHz gear and attempted to work an 800 mile path up the coast to Chip N6CA, Dave K6OW and myself set-up near Santa Barbara. 10GHz signals were not heard that day, but Jack worked Santa Barbara on 2meters which sparked this ham's interest in the path.

Now, more than ten years later, I visited San Carlos during the August microwave contest weekend hoping we could connect with one of the dozens of stations out in the field. It turned out to be a record breaking day and a half on 10GHz.

I made 53 10GHz contacts from DL34wt this weekend. The longest contacts were with Gary AD6FP at 1460km, then with N6CA and KH6WZ who were just a little closer in at 1448km. In fact, the NA 10GHz DX record was broken five times during the weekend, first by W6QIW at 1315km; then by N6CA and KH6WZ at 1320km, 1426km and again at 1448km; and finally on 8/19/2007 at 0845 with Gary AD6FP operating at CM96wa at 1460km (907mi) which should be the new NA 10GHz record. The AVERAGE contact distance for all 53 contacts was 1178km and the accumulated score on just two log pages is over 65k points!

I want to thank everyone who supported this effort, including the San Bernardino Microwave Society members who went out to the coast and into the hills, the fellows from the 50MHz and Up group in Northern California who came down and added to the success, to the hams who checked in with Miguel and myself on the hour on 40meters during the long trip down and back, and to our Mexican compadres Bernardo, Antonio and Dr. Levy of the FMRE. This was a group effort with shared rewards. My greatest pleasure comes from the participation and support we received from so many. Thank you all.

I encourage those who participated in this fun weekend to share here on the reflectors their recollections of these long contacts we made and see that your longer contacts get into the record book with sufficient details.

See you on the air,
Frank WB6CWN / 4C2WH

The power point presentation from our September 2007 meeting is available on the members only site here.

The power point presentation from our February 2007 meeting is available here.

Dionysus a program that synthesizes, edits, analyzes, and joins filter circuits from audio to microwave frequencies. DIONYSUS is capable of designing from many different transfer functions, including Bessel, Gaussian, Butterworth, Tchebychev, Elliptic, and Pole Placed. ComNav Engineering has given us the right to distribute copies
of the filter development software on this site for free!
Download it Here....
Submitted by: Jeffrey WA6KBL

To download the 24Ghz Power Point Presentation, click here.

The IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques (MTT) Sociey will be holding a mini short course about "Power Amplifiers for Wireless Applications" on May 5th 2007.
For more information, please see the MTT May meeting web page.

April 16, 2005 - The team of RW3BP, AD6FP, W5LUA, and VE4MA would like to announce that the first 47 GHz contacts via the moon have been completed. As you may recall, RW3BP heard the first lunar echoes on 47 GHz back in August of 2004. At that time he was heard by AD6FP, W5LUA, VE4MA and VE7CLD. Since the receipt of the first 47 GHz echoes via the moon, numerous tests between RW3BP and AD6FP led to improvements by RW3BP allowing him to copy calls from the lower power signal of AD6FP in January of 2005.

As of April 16, 2005 the team of AD6FP, W5LUA and VE4MA have each completed a CW QSO via the moon with RW3BP.

The station at RW3BP consists of a 2.4M offset fed dish and 100 plus watts while the station at AD6FP consists of a 1.8M offset fed dish and 30 watts. At W5LUA and VE4MA 2.4M offset fed dishes and 30 watt TWTs were used. Noise figures of all stations are in the 3.5 to 4.7 dB range.

Since the doppler shift can be as much as 100 + kHz at 47 GHz, one must continuously adjust the receive frequency to keep the station centered in the passband. Precision frequency control was obtained by using GPS controlled, Rubidium locked, or TV sync controlled phase locked local oscillators. Various techniques were in use to keep the Doppler shifted frequency in the passband of the receivers.

Submitted by RW3BP, AD6FP, W5LUA and VE4MA

47GHz World Record (October 30, 2005)

On the evening of October 30 W6QI and AD6FP completed a 47 GHz contact over a 343 Km path, 30 Km farther than the current record. W6QI operated from Frazier Mountain DM04ms North of Los Angeles. AD6FP operated from Pilot Peak DM07bs near the northern entrance to Yosemite. The path is near line-of-sight with an obstructing peak about 20 Km south of Pilot Peak.

Signal levels were easy copy with some slow fading, 30+db margin on the Frazier end and 6+ db on the Pilot end.

Weather conditions were seasonal normal for California, temperatures in the mid 40 fahrenheit range with ~ 60% relative humidity. Both Frank and Gary were returning from the Microwave Update 2005 conference that was held in Los Angeles and hosted by the San Bernardino Microwave Society. The stations used were the same as last time:

* W6QI: 12" splash plate, 10 mw, 8 db NF
* AD6FP: 36" Cassegrain, 30 w, 4 db NF

AA6IW had another 47 GHz radio on the Frazier end with W6QI but due to local oscillator problems was not able to participate in the record breaking contact. N2MJI accompanied AD6FP to the Pilot end and assisted in the navigation to the site and the radio setup which were both done after sunset thanks to a flat tire on the way to Pilot. It took several hours to finally make the QSO due to problems at both ends: failing power inverter, failing local oscillator, aiming in the dark etc.

QSOs were also completed on 10 and 24 GHz with very strong signal levels and 10 GHz was used as the liaison frequency. To assist aiming W6QI played back his 47 GHz audio to AD6FP over the 10 GHz liaison allowing AD6FP to do the final peaking of the dish. Signal margins indicate longer paths are possible but further attempts will have to wait for spring .

August 2004 Microwave Tune-Up Party Summary

Check out the pictures from the microwave tune-up party we held on August 7, 2004. We had a very nice day out in the warm summer sunshine, testing radios and ragchewing. We had a whopping 19 group members show up for the event!

Microwave Beacons in operation