Today was microwave bands day and Simon ZL1SWW brought along a selection of toys to demonstrate the ease with which contacts are made in the upper UHF / SHF region. Fickle weather not only made outside operations slightly difficult at times, but no doubt the damp on foliage and in the air, most likely increased path loss.
Operating from the west deck at MP, a clear view of trees didn’t stop contacts on multiple bands with Greg ZL1GSG, located around 32km away on the Waitakere Ranges. From 900 MHz through 3GHz, contacts were made at good strength. A little more difficult at 24GHz, but it got through – not only via direct path, but also through reflection off Rangitoto.
Contacts on some of the lower bands were also made with ZL1BK and ZL1SKL. Dave, ZL1DL found he could (just) receive Greg on 925MHz on his Quansheng handheld. 1296 was a bridge too far though, but not surprising given the rubber ducky is intended for 144 / 430.
All too soon it was coffee time ( how surprising ). For show and tell, Dave ZL1DL produced an ATU-100 antenna tuner kit, that he had hoped to at least start assembling today ( not happening ). He wants to operate it remotely; initially just with power over coax ( PoC?). Following on will come control and status info transport – again preferably without additional cabling. One possibility for the data is via audio freq modems over the coax; the PoC bias Tees will be designed with this in mind. Alternatively, using an additional data cable, the I2C data for the display could be converted to RS-485 at the physical layer, to go the distance. Keith ZL1BQE has suggested a WiFi link for the data. So lots of possibilities…
Today, a new WiFi access point was installed at the repeater level. This should greatly improve WiFi in the tearoom – an extremely important requirement to allow information / resolution for those discussions over coffee…