Background - drewarnett/simple-inexpensive-microwave-radios GitHub Wiki
Background
Bands
Microwave is popularly considered to be north of 1 GHz. (We don't stick to just microwave.)
There are 28 amateur bands in the U.S. plus everything north of 275 GHz. (handy ARRL frequency chart)
Useful to consider band plans (ARRL band plan for example) and regional frequency coordination. (For us, SCRRBA, Southern California Repeater and Remote Base Association.)
1.2 GHz
- 1294.5 MHz - national FM simplex calling frequency
- 1296.1 MHz - national SSB/CW simplex calling frequency
- 1296.32 MHz - San Diego beacon
10 GHz
- 10368.1 MHz - national SSB/CW simplex calling frequency
- 10368.300 to .400 MHz - beacon subband
- 10368.360 MHz - San Miguel beacon in San Diego
- beacons up north: .300 Palos Verdes, .310 Frazier, .330 Heaps
Community
- SDMG (San Diego Microwave Group) - southern SoCal
- SMBS (San Bernardino Microwave Socienty) - our sister SoCal group
- 50 MHz & Up - NorCal
- AZ VHF Society
- Microwave mailing list
- other regional clubs
- Microwave Update - annual NA microwave meetup, publishes proceedings
Get in touch with your local group or with the community via the 'net. Even if DIY, they can be helpful for bits and pieces, testing, knowledge, and experience.
Reading
Us
- N7DA SBMS presentation 2022-02-03
- Banke and Arnett, "A Simple Experimental 10 GHz Transmitter Hunt Setup", Proceedings of Microwave Update 2015
Inspiration
- KK7B
- Campbell, "Simply Getting on the Air from DC to Daylight", Proceedings of Microwave Update '94, Sep. 1994. (Included on Experimental Methods in RF Design CD-ROM.)
- "A Simple 5 Band CW Transceiver"
- "Inexpensive Lightweight High-Performance Small Yagi Antennas for VHF-UHF Portable Operation"
- Clark, "Inexpensive Easy to Build Microwave Transceiver: The DROplexer", www.ham-radio.com/sbms/presentations/Walt_Clark/DROplexer.pdf - modern version of the Gunnplexer transceivers
- Hayward and Larkin, "Simple RF-Power Measurement", QST, June 2001
Parts and information
- W1GHZ - reading, transverters, sells PCBs and parts
- WA5VJB - reading, cheap Yagi articles, sells PCB antennas
- RTL-SDR Blog - guide to RTL-SDR hardware, sells customized version and accessories, many ideas for other things to do with an RTL-SDR RX
- Bullseye LNB - smaller frequency error sat TV LNB