In the present situation it is likely to be switched on and off over the immediate future as modifications take place - so don't start to dismantle your receiver if you fail to hear it. Currently the problems are mainly to do with concerns over temperature of the heatsinks - however a few fans seem to have fixed the problem! Also some switching surges can be heard as variations in the tone. It looks like some better screening and filtering is indicated.

The set-up uses a mixer stage and only partial lock to GPS. The final signal may therefore be a few hertz out from the nominal. This will be fixed shortly when the DDS clock is derived directly from the GPS.

The present scheme is similar to a normal transverter in that it uses a mixer/ LO +filter to get to the final freq. This was due to the unsuitability of the DDS to provide a clean enough signal after multiplying to 10368MHz.

LO is 106.52MHz x 96 = 10225.92MHz locked to GPS IF from a DDS a la G4JNT (unlocked 10MHz OCXO ref) 71.445 x2 =142.89MHz The "out of band" IF is deliberate and intended to avoid interference with my 2m IF. The LO level is 20mW and the IF power level is 10mW as they go up to the beacon mast assy.

The output signal is as follows:

1. Morse 10368.810MHz using an amplitude ramped on off keying "G6GXK IO83VO" followed by a continuous tone until the end of the minute.

2. Morse FSK 10368.810MHz shifted to 10368.8106MHz "G6GXK IO83VO" followed by a continuous tone to end of minute.
And repeated

Reports sought and will be very welcome whatever they are - good or bad! Please let me know - where you are and whether you can hear it. I will use these reports to shape future modifications

Reports so far:

North Wales - IO83IG John MW1FGQ - 59
Bell Hill, IO80UU -Paul M0EYT - 52 to 53
Swindon, IO91HP -Neil G4BRK - 52?
Guildford, IO91OC99 - Ian G8KQW 518/519
IO82WO - Russ G4PBP 52 to 42

(updated: 2006 October 2006)