TS2000 ~436.798 MHz Birdie Solution
As many of you know, my satellite radio is a TS2000X. If you have visited my satellite webpage, you have seen many recordings of AO-27 and SO50 from AOS to LOS. Most of these recordings were made when I was not sitting in front of the radio.
At first I used a uhf mobile to hear AO-27 and SO-50. The problem was that those radios were not computer controlled so you had to tune for the doppler. That worked fine when I was in the shack, but it didn't work when I was away. The obvious solution was another radio that didn't have the birdie problem, or a simple UHF to 10M downconverter which wouldn't have the birdie problem. Back in the day, UHF and VHF down- converters were very popular because we didn't have a lot of DC to Light radios out there. Now these converters are sitting in junk boxes and are long forgotten by their owners.
One of the more popular manufacturers of these inexpensive downconverters was Hamtronics. They made all kinds of stuff for repeaters etc. At first their products were not that great, but they evolved into some better designs including their UHF to 10m downconverters. Unfortunately most downconverter manufacturers stopped making them when the devices they were using became obsolete and unavailable. The use of current production devices required a redesign of their PC boards and since the demand was no longer there, these products were abandoned.
I was fortunate to find a Hamtronics converter on a qrz.com posting from several years back. It never sold back then and the owner still had it. I purchased it and ran some tests on it against the receiver in the TS2000. It turned out that the downconverter had a slightly better sensitivity than the TS2000!
The big concern when using a converter or preamp is the fear of transmitting into it and smoking the front end. But the TS2000 has an auxiliary antenna jack which is receive only and perfect for a downconverter output on HF. As Drew mentioned, SatPC32 can compensate for a downconverter and tune the TS2000 for doppler in the 10m band. This allowed me to track AO-27 AO-51 and SO-50 unattended and make all those recordings without any human intervention.
A coaxial transfer relay was inserted into the uhf antenna line so that when the converter was in use, the UHF antenna was switched to the downconverter input (which outputs to the aux antenna jack on the TS2000) and the UHF antenna jack on the TS2000 is switched to a dummy load. So if you transmit on UHF, power goes into the dummy load and all equipment is safe. When I want to transmit on UHF (VO-52 and AO-7 mode B), the coax relay switches the UHF antenna back to the UHF antenna port on the TS2000. The downconverter is out of the antenna circuit at this point. I did not use the downconverter when operating on FO-29 so the aux antenna jack had to be switched to normal in the tS2000, menu #18 (FO-29 is a linear bird that outputs on UHF, currently not working).
Every owner of a TS2000 that operates satellites needs a UHF to 10M downconverter. Hamtronics is making a VHF to 10M downconverter now. If everyone emailed them to encourage them to make a UHF model, they might just do it. The only other solution is to make one yourself, or find a used downconverter or transverter that is gathering dust on someone's shelf. I now have an IC910H and am doing comparisons against the TS2000. My first impression it that I prefer the TS2000 but that might be because I'm so familiar with it. I use another TS2000 in the mobile sat truck but don't have a downconverter for it. I simply use a uhf mobile for receive on AO-27 and SO-50 since I'm in front of the radio and don't run it unattended. I have a coax switch to switch the UHF antenna from the TS2000 to the UHF mobile.
Now that AO-51 is silent, all of the FM operation is on SO-50 and AO-27. If you have a TS2000, you'll want to investigate the use of a downconverter.
73, John K8YSE
Hi John,
I had heard of the down converter solution before and purchased a used down converter. Unfortunately it seemed to pick up the TS- 2000 bird nearly as well as the TS-2000. I just lashed the setup together so maybe taking more care to isolate the converter from the TS-2000 might improve my results. I'll have to give it a try again.
Mike kc9doa
On 30 Nov 2011 at 10:49, John Papay wrote:
As many of you know, my satellite radio is a TS2000X. If you have visited my satellite webpage, you have seen many recordings of AO-27 and SO50 from AOS to LOS. Most of these recordings were made when I was not sitting in front of the radio.
At first I used a uhf mobile to hear AO-27 and SO-50. The problem was that those radios were not computer controlled so you had to tune for the doppler. That worked fine when I was in the shack, but it didn't work when I was away. The obvious solution was another radio that didn't have the birdie problem, or a simple UHF to 10M downconverter which wouldn't have the birdie problem. Back in the day, UHF and VHF down- converters were very popular because we didn't have a lot of DC to Light radios out there. Now these converters are sitting in junk boxes and are long forgotten by their owners.
One of the more popular manufacturers of these inexpensive downconverters was Hamtronics. They made all kinds of stuff for repeaters etc. At first their products were not that great, but they evolved into some better designs including their UHF to 10m downconverters. Unfortunately most downconverter manufacturers stopped making them when the devices they were using became obsolete and unavailable. The use of current production devices required a redesign of their PC boards and since the demand was no longer there, these products were abandoned.
I was fortunate to find a Hamtronics converter on a qrz.com posting from several years back. It never sold back then and the owner still had it. I purchased it and ran some tests on it against the receiver in the TS2000. It turned out that the downconverter had a slightly better sensitivity than the TS2000!
The big concern when using a converter or preamp is the fear of transmitting into it and smoking the front end. But the TS2000 has an auxiliary antenna jack which is receive only and perfect for a downconverter output on HF. As Drew mentioned, SatPC32 can compensate for a downconverter and tune the TS2000 for doppler in the 10m band. This allowed me to track AO-27 AO-51 and SO-50 unattended and make all those recordings without any human intervention.
A coaxial transfer relay was inserted into the uhf antenna line so that when the converter was in use, the UHF antenna was switched to the downconverter input (which outputs to the aux antenna jack on the TS2000) and the UHF antenna jack on the TS2000 is switched to a dummy load. So if you transmit on UHF, power goes into the dummy load and all equipment is safe. When I want to transmit on UHF (VO-52 and AO-7 mode B), the coax relay switches the UHF antenna back to the UHF antenna port on the TS2000. The downconverter is out of the antenna circuit at this point. I did not use the downconverter when operating on FO-29 so the aux antenna jack had to be switched to normal in the tS2000, menu #18 (FO-29 is a linear bird that outputs on UHF, currently not working).
Every owner of a TS2000 that operates satellites needs a UHF to 10M downconverter. Hamtronics is making a VHF to 10M downconverter now. If everyone emailed them to encourage them to make a UHF model, they might just do it. The only other solution is to make one yourself, or find a used downconverter or transverter that is gathering dust on someone's shelf. I now have an IC910H and am doing comparisons against the TS2000. My first impression it that I prefer the TS2000 but that might be because I'm so familiar with it. I use another TS2000 in the mobile sat truck but don't have a downconverter for it. I simply use a uhf mobile for receive on AO-27 and SO-50 since I'm in front of the radio and don't run it unattended. I have a coax switch to switch the UHF antenna from the TS2000 to the UHF mobile.
Now that AO-51 is silent, all of the FM operation is on SO-50 and AO-27. If you have a TS2000, you'll want to investigate the use of a downconverter.
73, John K8YSE
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
At 17:55 30/11/2011, you wrote:
Hi John,
I had heard of the down converter solution before and purchased a used down converter. Unfortunately it seemed to pick up the TS- 2000 bird nearly as well as the TS-2000. I just lashed the setup together so maybe taking more care to isolate the converter from the TS-2000 might improve my results. I'll have to give it a try again.
Mount the down convertor at the aerial/masthead! way out of range for the spurious and you can use cheap cable for the 10mtr down feed line!
----- Original Message ----- From: "John Wright" ham@g4dmf.co.uk To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2011 6:24 PM Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: TS2000 ~436.798 MHz Birdie Solution
At 17:55 30/11/2011, you wrote:
Hi John,
I had heard of the down converter solution before and purchased a used down converter. Unfortunately it seemed to pick up the TS- 2000 bird nearly as well as the TS-2000. I just lashed the setup together so maybe taking more care to isolate the converter from the TS-2000 might improve my results. I'll have to give it a try again.
Mount the down convertor at the aerial/masthead! way out of range for the spurious and you can use cheap cable for the 10mtr down feed line!
Hi John, G4DMF
To mount the down convertor at the aerial/masthead seems to be a good solution to way out of range from the TS-2000 but to transmit in 70 cm using the same antenna you need in addition a good coax relay antenna mounted.
The relay common port must be connected to the 70 cm antenna and the normally closed contact NC must be connected to the 70 cm transmission line while the normally open NO contact must be connected to the converter RF input.
With the above configuration to receive 70 cm using your converter you need only to excite the relay coil.
73" de
i8CVS Domenico
I'm just getting started setting up my IC-9100. I tried to control it with SatPC32 last night via the USB cable.I couldn't get this to work. I'm seeing the virtual comports in WIN7 device manager, but SatPC32 doesn't work at all with them. The USB port works fine with the RT systems memory programming s/w so I'm assuming my Icom drivers are installed and working correctly. My question, does anyone have the 9100 working with SatPC32 via the USB cable? Or do I have to use the CI-V cable for radio control?
73 Jeff kb2m
participants (5)
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i8cvs -
John Papay -
John Wright -
kb2m＠comcast.net -
Mike Miller