As we have all been held at home under Covert19 lock downs, the best way to fill in the time is to take up a new project or clean out the shack.
VK4MJF(John) decided to take the hobby to a new level with a small project on building a 5.8GHz transvertor.
First to check prices on commercial products, nothing much was about other than high priced Khlune products costing about $1300.00AU for a very nice unit with about 200mw.
So the idea was to keep simple with a budget for less than $500.00, first stop a transverter board and amplifier which were sorted from W1GHZ (2 PC boards and a mixer $60.00.)
Then an oscillator, a popular NZ brand was $200.00AU no stock, not looking good. So then with a search on the world wide web found a digilo product $125.00AU, nice unit has miriod of variable IF choices. For this project a 28MHz IF was easy to select with a couple of switched options for field day activity.
A few small components Mini kits supplied resistors, capacitors and small drive amplifiers, with some pipe (from a hardware shop(Green in colour)etc,$30.00. With other required items from my bits box($0.00).
One of the most frustrating items was an power amplifier, had a couple from the Chinese Best Buy space, which had failed or were a rated 4 watts etc well, 200mw at best showed up on the metre. A $35.00AU FPV 5.8GHz with a rating 4 watts 12volt used in the model aircraft hobby was found 3 were purchased only one functioned and to 4 watts, Hala ulu.
Ok its been three(3) lock downs and lots of months and the project is complete a 5.8GHz transverter 4 watts output for the sum of around $350.00AU, plus a cast aluminium box $60.00 Jaycar locally. So as you can see his budget was well achieved.
As the transvertor needed tuning(pipe caps etc.) VK4AMG(George) took pity on John(VK4MJF) and took a look. Whilst this was being done, George offered a project he had been working on, a 10 MHz reference OCXC to stabilise the gear for around $100.00, well this did the trick and it was completed just over the budget(most other products don’t include stability).
