QUEENSLAND DIGITAL GROUP
                                                                      

   Home  ATV  Committee  Computer  Digipeat  Downloads  For Sale  Help  Information  IP subnets  Links  Latest Information  Membership  Modem  Modem Help Desk  Network and BBS  Network Map   NEWS  Photo page   VHF  Who is the QDG  Wireless LAN 
Site Index

Spam and Open Relay Blocking System  


Antenna Mods


Mods to Pacific Monolithics Down Converter 

This mod removes the down-converter so the antenna can be used for 2.4 GHz wireless LAN

 

 

Image025.jpg (17254 bytes)Image026.jpg (24348 bytes)Remove F connector and screw

 

 

 

Another view

 

 

Image024.jpg (25215 bytes)Cut open the plastic case along the join, use a small saw and knife

 

Image028.jpg (24673 bytes)Image027.jpg (27101 bytes)

                                            Cut the electronics (down converter) off

 

Image023.jpg (22059 bytes)

 

 

You are left with this

 

Image021.jpg (23972 bytes)    Image022.jpg (20625 bytes)

This is a view of both sides

 

Image031.jpg (38476 bytes)Image032.jpg (41726 bytes)

Connect the coax cable

The braid is connected to one side of the dipole, the centre conductor
 is connected to the other side.
If you look at the antenna printed circuit board you will see that the small
 pad on one side joins one side of the dipole through the board.
Centre conductor to the small pad, braid to the other side of the
board other dipole side.

      ***********|     |************
        |    |    |
        |         |
        |         |
         ~~~~~

Image040.jpg (23417 bytes) Image041.jpg (20912 bytes)

With the coax cable connected

Image046.jpg (25548 bytes)

Fitted back in the housing

Now seal the end of the coax with neutral cure silicone sealant

The last step is to re-assemble the housing and seal with neutral cure silicone

 

Also see   http://clown.ecig.com.au/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=6

MPAP antenna mods http://www.mpap.net/gallery/Antennas/Mods/index.htm

Hans's Website    http://apache.airnet.com.au/~fastinfo/wireless/PacMon/


This mod uses the antenna to receive Amateur Satellites

Receiving AO40 the cheap way
 
Many people thing that super high frequencies mean super high equipment costs.  However, Chris VK3CJS has found an economical way of receiving telemetry from the AMSAT-OSCAR 40 satellite on 2401 MHz.   Chris writes as follows:
 
I have obtained a couple of downconverters (Conifer and Pacific Monolithics/Hills) which convert 2401 MHz down to 450 MHz.  Of course it would be nice to own a Yaesu FRG 9600 or similar to use as an IF but this luxury is denied to me.
 
I have an old scanner which was found on the Maldon tip.  It covers 450 MHz and has a first IF of 21.4 MHz as I believe most scanners have.  It was dead easy to arrange a coupling cap and a bit of coax to connect this to one of my HF receivers. The idea of all this was to use the scanner as a second converter, to convert the 450 MHz output from the first converter down to HF. 
 
I tried tapping 21.4 MHz after the filter, but the bandwidth was too narrow for a good spread with the HF receiver.  Happily I found an unused low impedance link on one of the IF transformers before the filter and this worked perfectly.  As an added precaution I disabled the second local oscillator crystal in the scanner by cutting the circuit board - there is no point in having more birdies than necessary.
 
After a couple of hours of fiddling I was receiving AO40 telemetry with the free soundcard program from Amsat.   PSK and SSTV signals have also been received. The signals were not very strong, but a bigger homemade dish should work better. 
 
The Conifer downconverter seems to be the better of the two types, having an extra RF stage.  It seems to have two separate front ends fed by a common local oscillator, so it seems to me that one might be cut off as redundant from the internal IF pre-amp. 
 
It is worth mentioning that the scanner's first local oscillator is ABOVE 450 Hhz, so the HF receiver is inverted (LSB = USB) and one must do mental arithmetic when tuning around.  However this can be overcome somewhat by the choice of second IF set into the scanner memory.  The local oscillators in the downconverters are accurate and the dish has only to be roughly pointed in the correct direction in order to hear the middle beacon which has a distinctive sound and thus is easy to find.
 
And that was an article by Chris VK3CJS on receiving 2.4 GHz signals from the AO-40 satellite.  If you'd prefer to build a cheap satellite, well we'll have some ideas on this next week. 
 
VK3CJS

reprinted from APCNEWS


Other Antenna modes

Modifying Confier Antennas for Wireless Networking     http://martybugs.net/wireless/conifermods.cgi


  NOTICE: always refresh your browser for each page on this site. Changes
are frequent.

If you are visiting from another site, this is our address http://www.qdg.org.au/