Posts by PY2RN

  • Impoliteness on the transponder

    I started my activity on QO-100 in Feb/2019 with great enthusiasm, I am on satellite operation/experiments since 80's with the Radio Sputink series and a first GEO for Amateur Radio certainly is a huge deflection point, but since several months I am losing interest to be active on the NB SSB, mostly no longer answer CQs and also do not make CQs as used to, the fact is that there is an increasing number of "police" operators that feels in the right to intrude in the middle of a conversation and start talking at the same time, then when you give him the opportunity to talk they come to complain about something: audio, signal level, splatter etc. I always ask the callsign, usually they do not give it but others do, anyway, this is very impolite to start talking and cause interruption on the same frequency when a qso had been already in progress unless it is an emergency, the complains are usually pointless since it was not causing LEILA trigger or affecting adjacent QSOs, with this SDR waterfall fever many does not know how to adjust it correctly and see / amplify things that actually does not exist and wouldn't be noticeable in a normal analog rig, but even though some "police" operators get not satisfied and start generating QRM over the QSO, blowing on the microphone, music, re-transmitting other stations, triggering LEILA on purpose etc. Just as a remembering : not everyone has the opportunity to buy an IC-9700, a super precise SDR or an expensive transverter, even if they do it will need to learn and adjust them first, also others use 100% home brew equipment that may be not as precise as the IC-9700 TX DSP to generate a perfect square in your waterfall, so be civilized, ask to enter in a frequency politely, or wait to the qso to finish and call the other station in a civilized manner or even send an email to avoid pointless discussions on the transponder, I have heard this happening to several stations / QSOs on the transponder (ssb portion) in may occasions, this type of aggressive approach will not contribute to save the transponder in any way.


    73


    Ed PY2RN

    GG66LW

  • OBS Studio + PLUDO SDR TX DATV howto?

    Quote from OE3GBB

    Hi Ed,

    Portsdown is a hardware system for DATV: https://wiki.batc.org.uk/Portsdown_2020. I am using the 2019 version, but with vMix. I have tried OBS and Pluto, but without success so far. rtmp and udp don't work here. I am also interested to see the right settings and the proper script for H265. If you are using Pluto, I think you don't need any Portsdown hard- or software, just the right OBS settings. Maybe someone could point us to the right information.

    regards

    Gerhard OE3GBB

    Hi Robert,

    I have an i7/16GB Windows10 . My display cards are AMD Radeon HD 6450 (I have two in the PC)


    Thank you


    Ed PY2RN

  • OBS Studio + PLUDO SDR TX DATV howto?

    Hello, working to get everything ready to transmit DVB-S2 DATV via QO-100 from GG66LW.


    I noticed that Pluto with F5OEO firmware and OBS Studio is almost standard among the stations I watch on DATV, I tried to search several places on how to configure OBS Studio but either it was too basic or not clear. I just installed OBS Studio sftware here, I never used this software before for anything so I don't even know where to start configuring it. Along OBS studio I also installed VNC and FFMPEG ( well, ffmpeg is a difficulty apart, there is no installation, just throwing the files inside C:/FFMPEG ?? ) What about " Portsdown " is it needed? Is it a hardware or a software?


    So if you please have any information to share or indicate I would appreciate.


    PS: I am aware about this wiki: https://wiki.batc.org.uk/Custom_DATV_Firmware_for_the_Pluto but it is not clear/too advanced to me.


    Thank you.


    Ed PY2RN

  • QO-100 QSO Confirmation eQSL, LoTW, DARC, etc.

    @dl9sad


    Several people still do not use LoTW and many others do not include PROP_MODE and BAND set correctly. But it is getting little better since one year ago :)




    <call:5>df3qe <qso_date:8>20200206 <time_on:4>1504 <sat_name:6>QO-100 <band:4>13cm <mode:2>CW OPTIONAL
    <gridsquare:0>    		 <PROP_MODE:3>SAT OPTIONAL
    <RST_Sent:3>599    		 OPTIONAL
    <qslmsg:43>tks fb qso via qo-100 sat. Pls cfm via lotw

    73 de ED PY2RN

  • QO-100 DXCC and User Statistic

    Quote from sv8qg

    I’m wandering how many from the 86 DXCC countries had been verified by LoTW? I have a record of 3 1/2 to 1!!!





    Quote from HB9SKA

    I got today the nice QSL card from TR8CA. Can you hold LOTW in your hand ?


    "Life is long enough to collect nice QSL cards" ;)

    @HB9SKA Please do not confuse QSL card exchange with LoTW confirmation, they are different things and one does not replace the other :) LoTW is a very smart and economic way to request diplomas, but the QSL card is a good remembering of a contact.


    73 de Ed PY2RN

  • QO-100 QSO Confirmation eQSL, LoTW, DARC, etc.

    My QO-100 most wanted! :)


    Entity Prefix Status Call 1 Call 2 Call 3 Call 4 Call 5 Call 6
    Georgia 4L W 4l/sp9dlm
    Montenegro 4O W 4O6AH 4O5JD
    ITU HQ 4U1I W 4U1ITU
    Madagascar 5R W 5R8IC
    West Malaysia 9M2 W 9M2CQC 9M62MY
    Nepal 9N W 9N1AA
    Botswana A2 W A21EME
    United Arab Emirates A6 W A65DC
    Bahrain A9 W A92GR
    The Gambia C5 W C5WP
    Morocco CN W CN8BD
    Cape Verde D4 W D44TWO
    Liberia EL W EL2DT
    Estonia ES W ES5PC ES9B
    Belarus EW W EU2AA EW6FS EU/AI6YP
    Reunion Island FR W FR4OO FR4KF FR4LI FR5FC FR1GF FR4KM/P
    Isle Of Man GD W GT3PYE/P
    Hungary HA W HA9MDP HA9ET HA8DH HA3GB HA6XV HA7NB
    Thailand HS W HS0AJ
    Sardinia IS0 W IS0JXO IS0AIT IS0MVE IS0ANY
    Djibouti J2 W J28PJ
    Luxembourg LX W LX1BB LX1WJ LX2MG LX2LA
    Bangladesh S2 W S21ON
    Sweden SM W SM7EQL SM4IVE SM0ZCQ SA6BUN
    Sudan ST W ST2NH
    Crete SV9 W SV9IOQ SV9ANK
    Ukraine UT W
    Latvia YL W YL3DW YL2RN YL/LA9TKA
    Serbia YU W YT7VG YU7BPQ

  • Chinese RF Power Meter

    I think one of the biggest challenges today is to get a good measurements of our TX power, almost 100% of the OMs heard reports "my power is about / aprox / near / something between x and y Watts" obviously this excludes those few lucky ones with access to professional instruments. In my knowledge the only "amateur" instrument that reaches up to 2.4GHz is the Daiwa CN-801S-II Meter which costs almost the same of a fully ready to go QO-100 station, and the not less expensive and hard to find Bird slugs. Few months ago I got one of this Chinese digital power meter (picture) that claims go from 1MHz to 5GHz, cheap, but so far can not tell if it is functional.


    Their specs:

    Measuring power range: -45～-5 dBm (external RF attenuator can be extended to 80dBm)

    Measurement resolution: 0.1 dBm power

    Measurement frequency range: 1 1MHz-5GHz

    Measured power: 1nW ~ 2W

    Working voltage: 5V DC (direct selection MICRO-USB powered)

    Working current: <50 mA

    Working temperature: -40 ° ~ 65 ° degrees Celsius


    I just found that injecting a 0dBm @ 2.4GHz from a trustable source it displays -19.0dBm so I suppose I will need to input +19dBm in the correction factor to start, so I placed an external 20.4dB attenuator which brings the correction to +39.4dB.

    Using SDR-Console I generated a CW tone on 2.4GHz @ 100% drive and got about 12.5dBm readout (picture), so for me it seems a little exaggerated but it is what is showing. Please let me know if you had made any testing with this type of instrument and the results, also how did you calibrated it?


    Thanks, 73


    Ed PY2RN

  • QO-100 QSO Confirmation eQSL, LoTW, DARC, etc.

    Quote from DG2SBL

    After having read all the comments in this thread, I do still have the following question:

    Which logbook software could you finally recommend for a newcomer on QO-100?

    Since many years I´m using HRD Log, but with being QRV via this bird now, I think it could be advisable to switch to another log programme.

    I do not use Log4om, I use DXKeeper, but may be a good option.

  • Software DVB-S demodulator

    Hello,

    Thanks a lot for this information, it recognizes my SDRPlay now :)


    Just wondering if there are similar procedure for AirSpy and Lime SDRs?


    Regards,


    Ed PY2RN

  • Lnb with 25 MHz dds Input goes bad.

    Quote from 4Z4LS

    ok, i see. thank you for your answer. i don't want to open new theme for issues like nightmare stabilizing xtal in LNB or so...., but my testing time is very long and nothing to say,bacause only 1 of 6 LNB under test was working with external source.

    about PLL is regular from RDA, 3566xx.

    You should see something similar to this in the pic.

    Both X1 and X2 pins will work, input at the corner pin (of the OS) is the low sensitive but better performance, -6 to +6 dBm input, the second pin is the sensitive input (-30 to +_6 dBm) but more phase noise.

  • Lnb with 25 MHz dds Input goes bad.

    Quote from 4Z4LS

    How long time change frequency is take to final stabilization ? How is weather affect to freq stability please?

    Can you send a picture of your connection to X1/X2 ports with TCXO? Whats going with xtal, C-load and other?

    Hi, there is no final stabilization, it will keep varying freq but +/- few Hz only while external temperature goes up or down but that will not cause much trouble, mainly if you protect the LNB from the wind with a radome. Regarding x1/x2 ports it will depend on the type of PLL the LNB has but in general it will work in either one, the other goes to a 1-10nF capacitor then ground.