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Remote control installation

Posted by sm2wmv on April 24, 2009 Comments Off

Some work was done two weeks ago. The power outlets behind the fake wall was installed and also connected to a new power central which was put up during the same weekend. Currently the amplifier room and the radio shack is connected to it. Each operating position (#3 and #4 shares) can be turned on/off from inside the shack and each operating position is also independently fused.

I added a 24V supply in the basement which is used for contactors etc to turn on/off amplifiers.

Still snow at the station, however a lot melted during the weekend.

Snow snow and more snow

Contactor used to turn on/off the amp.

The grey box on the top right is the remote control box for the amp which I recently built.

The power outlets behind the fake wall. Operation position #1 and #2 has got 8 outlets each and position #3 and #4 shares 8 outlets.

Cheap cable holders (thanks for the idea K1TTT). These work UFB, they are not the prettiest but they work and are cheap.

A bunch made

New power central was installed. Currently the amplifier room and the radio shack is installed to it. Operating position #1, #2 and 3+4 are fused independently.

Decoupling on the 24V output

The 24V supply with the box to turn one wall outlet on/off.

Cable holders in place with two cables running inside. Those are control cables for the amplifier.

Contact block which connects the black thick cable going from the shack with the cable to the amplifier.

24V supply temporarily in place

The contactor on the wall, I didn’t have enough cable clips so I will finish that up later.

The amp room, a bit messy but this was taken right after the installation was done.

To be continued…

Inband electronics, tower climbing and Hi-Z array work

Posted by sm2wmv on August 29, 2016 Comments Off

My last vacation week I spent time working on the inband electronics, the 868 MHz RF-link that will be used to control remote stuff at the station, such as RX-arrays, 4-SQ at distance and mainly the inband tower site. I have made some 868 MHz modules with BPFs on the input which also acts as surge protectors. I climbed up and exchanged the one we put up in the 60m tower (which was temporary just to try) with the proper one and it seem to work great. I also had the laptop with me and re-configured the APRS I-gate but of course I was missing some DLL-files so I spent probably 15 minutes figuring that out at 52m with the laptop. Luckily I had internet coverage up there 🙂

Some work has also been done getting some boxes around all the rotors for the rotating towers. I plan to make a roof for the military tower also before the snow arrives, since it happens that it freezes up during the winter.

I also started to work on getting the Hi-Z 4-SQ array that SA0AZT donated. He won it when he was in Dayton and didn’t really feel he needed it, so he was very kind and gave it to us instead. I have made some verticals from old CUE DEE 20m yagi elements which I extended a bit. I also made some insulators from some plastic tubes I got from SM3WMU once and managed to attach them.

SM2UVU came for a couple of days and helped me out, we got a lot done so the current state is that the verticals are vertical in their proper position. I have bought some 16x2mm plastic pipe (150m) that I will use to put the cables in between the verticals, to help protect them. I will also put the coax from the array on the ground the last ~50m so that I don’t get any strange effects from having the coax up in the air. So I want to put the cable in the plastic tubes so it might survive the lonely bored critter.

I went to the SK2AU club meeting, which I try to do at least once every summer when I have vacation and it was great. I managed to buy 90m of 1/2″ and 45m of 7/8″ for a decent price. Me and SM2UVU also went to the SK2AU flea market on the Saturday following the club meeting and scored some stuff. I bought a bunch of linear power supplies which will come handy now when I am trying to get rid of the unnecessary switched supplies.

Stay tuned…

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Antenna work, inband rotor and winch

Posted by sm2wmv on May 26, 2016 Comments Off

I have gotten great help from SM2UVU the last two weekends and we’ve gotten quite a lot done even though weather was pretty poor last weekend on Saturday. He also had his girlfriend with him which was nice since she and Anna spent time with each other and seemed to have fun.

Me and SM2UVU almost completed the OB16-3 copy. Just some minor stuff left to do such as attaching the boom guys to the center strut and also adding the balun. After that it should be ready to be hoisted, which will hopefully happen quite soon. I also finished the RF choke for the 40m Yagi so that one just needs the hairpin built and it is ready to go up as well. I have some plans to take a week off work soon and hopefully then we can get them mounted on the tower if weather and ground crew allows.

My neighbor called and asked if I needed any construction wood. I said not right now so he said he’d put it away then. When SM2XJP came by and I told him he said “Did you ask if he wasn’t just going to give it to you?”. So I went there and asked the price for it, since I will need it sooner or later. So he told me it was free if I just took it from there which SM2XJP did with the help of the neighbors tractor. It’s great to have such neighbors 🙂 It is quite a lot and the planned rack for aluminium and steel materials seem to be happening this summer 🙂

I got an inverter that I ordered from China to be used on the winch. I tried it and it works great so me and SM2UVU got the 200m of wire onto the drum of the winch. However I took 20m off it later to have a bit more space, since I will never more than 180m. I will also add some plates to make the drum sides a bit higher to minimize the risk of the wire climbing over. But it seems as if we keep the winch aligned properly to the tower that the wire lays out on the drum nicely by itself. Now left to do on it is welding those side plates on plus making the controls for it. Plan is to have one control on the winch itself but also a remote, at first by cable but I have some plans to make a wireless remote as well.

I have also ordered an inverter based gasoline generator which will be super great when working at the inband tower. And with the new inverter for the winch (1-phase to 3-phase) it is possible to run the winch of it.

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Electronics

Posted by sm2wmv on April 20, 2016 Comments Off

Not that much radio related has been done so far this year. I have spent a few weekends at the QTH but not done much major stuff, just some organizing in the basement etc. Now however sun has appeared again and my motivation is getting better and better. Plans for this spring is to finish up the house and the inband tower. I will also try to get the WARC beam up. There is a lot of minor stuff I also need to spend this summer doing, such as small houses for all rotors to the towers etc. There is also plenty of work to be done getting inband to work with remote access link for antenna switching etc which will be run over XBee. I have been looking at making some HPF for them to make sure I don’t get any interference from the HF bands, I dont know how much I should trust the RF-frontend on those modules.

This weekend me and Hicco will go down and hopefully weather is good enough so I can do some outdoor work.

Stay tuned…