ARRL 2004 10 GHz and up contest.
I was using one of the Verticom MTS 2000 frequency synthesizers, courtesy of the San Diego Microwave group, to convert direct to a 28 MHz IF for use with a Ten Tec Orion transceiver, however the MTS 2000 has proved to be very unreliable. The transvertor used some K&L 6 cavity filters that give better than 60 dB image rejection and better than 40 dB Lo rejection on transmit. Before using these filters an image reject mixer was used for the conversion. The power amplifier was an Aydin Microwave amplifier block giving 3 watts output with 36dB gain. On the receiver side a modified TV LNB was used with a measured noise figure of 2.1 dB. I have a Siemens RW289 TWT which should give about 10 watts for the TX output but have not used this in preference to the much smaller solid state amplifier. The complete transverter was mounted on a 30 inch dish antenna. This picture shows the setup for the first week of the 2004 10 GHz and up contest but the MTS 2000 failed an no contacts were made.
ARRL 2003 10 GHz and up contest.
Using basically the same gear as 2004.
ARRL 2001 10 GHz and up contest.
The front end used a 10.000 GHz DRO divided by 1000 and phase locked to the 10 MHz reference oscillator of a Racal RA 6830-JD HF receiver. The 10 GHz mixer was a Hittite HMC220MS8, the LNA and PA stages were taken from surplus Qualcomm's omni tracks units. With a 10 GHz LO the first IF was 368 MHz. The modular construction of the RA 6830 was used to provide an easy interface to the front end stages. Connectors were added to the receiver such that LO1 , 40.455 MHz IF in, 40.455 IF out, and BFO were available on the rear panel. An external box was used for a 408.455 oscillator phase locked to the RA 6830 LO1 output at 48.455 to produce a new LO, tuning from 408.455 MHz (8 MHz on Rx dial). A new high level mixer was used for the 368 MHz to the 40.455 MHz conversion both on receive and transmit. For transmit a microphone amp, SL6440 balanced mixer, using the RA 6830 BFO as an LO, Collins filter, variable gain limiting amp for compression, Collins filter, another SL 6440 to mix to 40.455 MHz and one of the Racal 40.455 MHz filters to give 40.455 MHz TX IF.
Past 10 GHz rigs...........
For the first ARRL 10 GHz and up contest I used a rig that was mostly wave guide construction capable of running 10 watts of SSB, FM or Wideband FM. All of my contacts were made using wideband FM. No other stations were found with SSB capability at that time so, no SSB contacts were made.
Picture from the 2003 10 GHz and up contest.
