For HF and amateur VHF bands our WiFi VFO works great. But we didn't have a cost-effective UHF signal source until now… Design Thanks to Ismo (OH2FTG), we recently experimented with a HopeRF CMT2119A powered board called HOPERF RF module RFM119W-433S1. Here is the CMT2119A powered board in action producing a CW (OOK) signal at ~433 MHz. The stability is pretty good and a bit surprising considering that the board uses a 20ppm 26 MHz regular quartz crystal - not bad! ...
OCXO's are awesome - this is what I learned while trying to get WSPR working reliably on the 2m band. Hardware Here is all you need for reliable WSPR'ing on the 2m band: A RAW OCXO "can" works fine too! Note: This modified Si5351 board image comes from SimonsDialogs. Essentially, we modify the CLK2 output port to become an input port that accepts the OCXO's output signal. ...
Circuit: DDX-Commercial-7 Antenna: Small jumper cable attached Initial Results 10m: 36 dB on WSJT-X audio meter, on quiet and also with nearby beacon on !!! 12m: 36 dB on audio meter, on quiet and also with nearby beacon on !!! 15m: 46 dB on audio meter on quiet, 65 dB with nearby beacon on - OK 20m: 44 dB on quiet, 65 dB with beacon on - OK 40m: 40 dB on quiet, 60 dB with beacon on - OK ...
The wspr_spread work is excellent. Doppler Spread It helped us debug why our TCXO-powered-WSPR beacon was pretty decent on 4m band but flaky on 2m. Doppler spread value on 70 MHz: ... 70.0924994 VU3CER MK68 23 0 0.29 1 1 0 1 44 1 810 0.517 Now see the problem on 144 MHz: ... 144.4905417 VU3CER MK68 23 -3 0.12 1 1 0 1 39 1 810 0.865 ...
Our WSPR beacon design works fine even on the 4m band (~70 MHz) . The key is to use a 25 MHz high-quality TCXO, like the 25 MHz HCI 0.5ppm TCXO! Results Challenges 2m WSPR is still out of reach for now - see the following sporadic decodes. Of course, the next challenge is to get 2m WSPR beacons working 100% reliably at a low cost. ...
Our 6m WSPR beacon design works fine now. The key is to use a 25 MHz high-quality TCXO, like the 25 MHz HCI 0.5ppm TCXO! 2m WSPR is still out of reach for this VFO design - see the following drifty screenshots: While WSPR is no good, 2m FT8 works pretty fine! ...
We make heavy use of Easy-Digital-Beacons-v1 for testing RF amplifiers. This single board is a versatile WiFi VFO and FT8 / FT4 / WSPR beacon. You can also use our CW-SigGen project to generate a suitable test signal.
This is an early design sketch of a 2m WSPR beacon. Key Points 25 MHz HCI 0.5ppm TCXO powering the Si5351 module instead of the 26 MHz TCXO. If this fails, we can use a 10 MHz OCXO instead (a bit out of spec but works fine). Tokmas CID10N65F GaN FET might work @ 144 MHz as the 'final'. If not, use Mitsubishi RD15HVF1-501 MOSFET as backup. 2SK3475 as the driver with variable DC bias at the gate The whole VCC to this amplifier will be PTT switched Ideally, we would want to keep the driver stage linear but the final stage as switched (Class C/D) Alternate: Perhaps by DC coupling the Si5351 input to 2SK3475, we can avoid the need for DC gate bias The "RFC" (bifilar coil still needed?) part will need to be figured out for VHF! Status Results: To be built and tested soon! ...
This is an early design sketch of a 6m WSPR beacon. Key Points 25 MHz HCI 0.5ppm TCXO powering the Si5351 module instead of the 26 MHz TCXO. If this fails, we can use a 10 MHz OCXO instead (a bit out of spec but works fine). Tokmas CID10N65F GaN FET should work @ 50 MHz TI UCC27614 or Onsemi NCP81074 gate driver Status Results: To be built and tested soon! ...
This ~1W to ~5W WSPR beacon runs continuously on the 10m band. It handles extreme environmental temperatures pretty well (it is 42°C plus here). Our article on this beacon's design and operation will appear in the May/June 2025 issue of the QEX magazine soon. References WSPR TX by G0UPL QEX May-June 2025 TOC ...