10GHz Beacon
OFF The Air
10GHz Beacon
10,368.216 000 MHz - GPS Frequency Controlled ±1Hz Accuracy
We will
be glad to point this Beacon Directly at your location from here -
See bottom of page for contact Information.
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Beacon is : OFF - June 8 - 2010 2200z ( cut the coax with a Lawnmower) Antenna Azimuth Direction :354º ( 3dB Beam Width 5.2° ) Antenna Elevation Angle : 0º Latitude : 43º 58' 32.996" N Longitude : 123º 14' 40.371" W Grid : CN83jx Elevation : 1050 feet ( 600' above surrounding terrain ) Frequency : 10,368.216 000 MHz - (GPS Phase Locked ± 1 Hz) Currently Working With : W7PUA Last edited: 20 January 2011 08:08 PM |
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T
he beacon is located on a hill top with a north facing ridge line, 12 miles South West of Eugene, Oregon about 1050' above Mean Sea Level. It sits on 50' of Rohn 25 tower, and about 600' above the valley floor at the southern end of the Willamette Valley. From this location I can see 70 miles north to the Turner hills, just south of Salem, Oregon and to the east I can see 100 miles to Mt Jefferson, the Three Sisters, Mt Washington and the top of Mt Bachelor. The horizon is about 70 to 100 miles away from 280° through North to 170° South for a total of 250° of swing. South is hilly terrain of the same elevation as the beacon for a 50 miles and the beacon is looking into a forest of 100 foot tall fir trees.Power output is 200mW (23.0dBm) through 4 feet of WR90 Flexible waveguide to feed a 14" dish - horizontal polarization - and can be remotely rotated and has manual elevation capabilities. The rotator brake has been removed from the Ham M rotator to allow micro adjustments to the azimuth that are less than the 3º dictated by the rotator brake when engaged. With this small of an antenna wind loading is not a problem. Easy to do and easy to put back to original condition.
The dish has a 3 dB beam width of about 5.2 degrees. The beacon puts out a continuous carrier with a CW ID W7CQ / B about once every minute. ( We plan to increase power output to one watt shortly with the donation of a QualCom Amp by KC7WW. See below in Future Plans.)
Frequency control is maintained with a GPS disciplined 10 MHz Reference OCXO - Click details of the 10MHz Reference OCXO and is used to phase lock a California Microwave "Brick" Oscillator running an internal 96.002Mhz crystal. This crystal frequency is multiplied by 12 to 1152.024 Mhz and again multiplied by 9 to our final frequency 10,368,216,000Hz. The signal is then amplified to about 200 milliwatts and feed to the 14 inch dish via 4 feet of flexible WR90 waveguide. The frequency accuracy and stability of this combination is accurate to about ± one Hz at the Beacon Frequency of 10,368,216,000Hz with the beacon output frequency, accurate to 1 x 10-10 and locked to GPS signals..
This makes the beacon a good frequency reference for checking the frequency performance of your 10GHz equipment. If you place your rig in Upper Sideband and tune to 10,368.215 400Mhz you will hear an exact 600 Hz note with a CW ID about once a minute. The practice of Zero Beating by tuning your radio to 10 368 216 000 will be close but due to the ears inability to hear and for the rig to output an audio tone of ZERO frequency. So set your rig to USB and tune to 10 368. 215 400 Mhz and listen for a 600 hz note. You can use Spectrum Lab to see exactly 600 hz on your computer.
We will be glad to point this Beacon Directly at your location
We can point the beacon at different locations that are requested by individuals or rovers. Most of the time the antenna will be pointed up the center of the Willamette Valley towards Portland, Seattle and beyond. If you desire to have your particular location in the center of the beam width, all you need to do is contact me with your Latitude / Longitude at the desired location and a date and time to schedule it.
To help assist anyone wanting to monitor this beacon I will compute the beam heading from my location to the desired point and I can also provide you with the reverse headings back to our beacon location of 43 58 33.0 N 123 14 40.3W
Pointing requests can be made by clicking on the E-Mail Airplane below.
Please contact me if you have any reports of hearing the beacon. Please include Date and Time.
T
his beacon project involves the joint efforts of the following hams:KI7WB, Ed for the original 10GHz beacon.
W7PUA, Bob for adding PLL control, modifying, updating and testing of the beacon.
W7SLB Beb for power supplies from his vast quantities of ham stuff in his garage.
W7SZ, Larry for encouragement and a good sense of humor and a great laugh when things didn't go as planned (I still have to remove a couple of tree limbs 65 feet up a 90' fir so Larry can "see" the 10Ghz signal directly)
W7LHL, Ernie (SK) for continuous prodding to keep me on track, while I removed five 50 foot trees, dug tower bases and planted ground anchors, built a tower mounting brackets and erected 50' of Rohn 25 tower on which to place the beacon. Ernie also provided me with basic computer program guidance to allow me to write a program to monitor and graph the beacon data output from the the ham shack. This has been a great addition an has allowed us to figure out problem before we climb the tower.
N4OFA, Mike for his donation of California Microwave Bricks to the Beacon Project after our "brick" started causing problems and we put out a call for help. Mike lives in Tennessee and just decided to help in the true spirit of "ham radio". Thanks Mike!
W7FPK, John (SK) for the chassis and cabinet to mount the inside power sources and computer data gathering.
Future plans:
KC7WW, Johan has donated a QualCom 1 watt amp to this project. This will involve replacing our current 200mw Impatt Diode Amplifier and all it's related power supply equipment with the QualCom amp and increase our power output by 7.0dBm from 23.0dBm to 30 dBm. A nice improvement under marginal conditions.
And me W7CQ, Jimmy, I was under the impression that ham radio was an indoor hobby and I have been outside in the weather all winter. Without all the encouragement from above I might still be thinking about it and not operating it. The work is NEVER DONE!
THANKS GUYS!
Jimmy W7CQ
Contact me at :
Jimmy Oldaker W7CQ
27640 Gibraltar Loop
Eugene, Oregon 97405
541- 686- 8396
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Copyright 2006 - Jimmy Oldaker Last edited: 20 January 2011 08:08 PM |