M0XXT Lapworth Radio Club

Just a quick update, lots of things happening at the moment to try and get the station ready in time for CQ WPX this weekend.

 

The Shack is looking really good, electrics are all in, room is painted, the cat5 needs to be terminated yet though.

 

The cable entry is finished in the ceiling, cable track is on the wall ready for Coax runs and you can see the wifi gear on the shelf, internet is provided using radio too, this is via a long distance 2.4Ghz link using Andrew 24dbi 2.4Ghz dishes.

 

Lots of homebrew engineering going on too, this is a nice home made guy point bearing made by Callum M0MCX

 

Here is some of our HEAVY engineering, more info on what this is soon ;) (Yes that is a scaffolding joint)

Lots of progress this week.

 

The new shack is now plastered, we should have electrics by next weekend so we can finally start putting things back together ready for WPX SSB.

 

Lots of development work on new antenna systems this weekend too.

 

Here's a few pics of the freshly plastered shack.

 

I've finally got the antenna switching finished tonight, nice new connectors fitted to the SixPak and the control box. We will finally have full sharing of antenna's between all the stations now.

 

The new wifi router arrived today too, this is used for our long distance 2.4Ghz broadband link. Previously we have used a PC to share this around the network, a dedicated router is a much better solution. It's a Buffalo WBR-G54.

Made some progress at the weekend on the mounting brackets for the new VHF/UHF/Microwave stack, these are modified 24" K brackets. Some of the brackets have been cut away to allow them to be mounted side on to the supporting brick post on the roof. Also got the drilling finished for the new connectors on the SixPak we will be using for antenna switching.

 

New Rotator (Create RC5-1) and rotator control cable arrived last week.

Over the last couple of days i've managed to finish off the High Power Stub filter system. Last time we used this it was a bit of a lash up, so i've now completed the Band Pass Filter to HPF Junction Box system.

 

New connectors fitted to the SixPak's, not sure why they don't fit connectors normally, i suppose it keeps costs down.

 

Connectors fitted to the junction box.

 

Wiring of the junction box in progress

 

The completed junction box wiring

 

SixPak wiring completed

 

Testing of the system, you can see one of the BPF filter boxes below the junction box, this drives the SixPak relays.

 

All in all this should make for a much neater and easier installation of the stub filters.

 

 

 

 

It's been a while since i posted an update however things have been progressing nicely. The First fix is now complete on the new shack, it should all be completed in time for CQ WPX SSB. The new shack is just over 6m x 3m in size, should be a pretty good size for our operations.

 

View looking towards the rear of the new shack

 

Looking towards the door to the new shack

 

Entry for the new earth system, the new shack has it's own TT earth system seperate from the rest of the building which is on a PME system.

 

Cabling ready for the new consumer unit dedicated for the new shack.

 

Plenty of power available for all the equipment.

 

Data Cabling ready for the wall mounted comms cabinet, the new shack will have a Gb network.

 

The other end of the data cabling, just waiting for the plastering so we can terminate these in wall boxes.

 

The new 3-Phase supply for the building, the new shack has one of these phases dedicated to it.

 

Thats all for now, i'll post more updates as work progresses, see you in WPX.

 

James M0YOM

 

The new switches we ordered for use with our high power coax stub harmonic filter system arrived today, they are ArraySolutions SixPak http://www.arraysolutions.com/Products/sixpak.htm switches and should do the job perfectly. The UK supplier for these is http://www.vinecom.co.uk/.

 

 

Work has now started on interfacing these to the BPF system so all the filtering is automatically switched.

We continued the prep work for CQWW SSB this weekend and got the 40m VPA (Vertical Parasitic Array), our Caribbean Array, built and tested. It appears to be performing as expected and should improve our rates on 40m significantly. Photo's coming soon.