Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Confucian" data-source="post: 983770" data-attributes="member: 408211"><p>I have two out of four (one spare not in use) Lnb's modified to Txco and one of the two un modified always was more stable than the others for some reason so you are right stability isnt a major issue. When I started this project on 25e it was all a bit of a lash up to see if I could get it going. Having had success I quickly lashed up two more setups for 15w & 54w so have ended up with a working station but with all sorts of odds and ends, three different dongles for one thing. Time has come to un lash" things and tidy it up. One reason for having a go at this was to keep the "little grey cells" ticking over and I have always found that the best way to learn new stuff is to role up your sleeves and have a go. The Idea of a common clock has appealed to me for a while, I looked at Rubidium, Symmetricom and Trimble units but getting hold of a good one at the right price is difficult and still have to get to 25 & 28.8mhz. Then I stumbled on various kits by <a href="http://www.qrp-labs.com/" target="_blank">QRP Labs Kits</a> which seemed to offer a solution at a reasonable price. I built the Oxco and GPS kits with reasonable success but in the mean time came across an interesting article by Gene Marcus (<a href="http://www.arrl.org/files/file/QEX_Next_Issue/2015/Jul-Aug_2015/Marcus.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.arrl.org/files/file/QEX_Next_Issue/2015/Jul-Aug_2015/Marcus.pdf</a>) which worked on the same principle but solved the programming issue. I got myself an Arduino Uno (clone) and a Si5351A Breakout Board from Etherkit (<a href="https://www.etherkit.com/rf-modules/si5351a-breakout-board.html" target="_blank">Etherkit</a>) an my qrp kit GPS (about £30) and in my true style cobbled together the means of producing stable 25 & 28.8mhz sources. I left off the buttons, rotary controller and LCD display and tweaked Marcus's Arduino sketch and it works a treat, I blasted the Si5351A Breakout Board for half an hour with the wifes hair dryer on full and the frequencies held steady. My cable runs to two of my dishes are only a couple of meters and the third not that much more so that shouldnt be a problem. As for Dongles the new V3 RTL_SDR.com even has selectable clock & expansion headers (<a href="http://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-blog-v-3-dongles-user-guide/" target="_blank">RTL-SDR Blog V.3. Dongles User Guide - rtl-sdr.com</a>) so may have to raid the gas meter and get three of these. Not sure how to go about distribution yet I did pic up a couple of these boards at the right price but not got that far yet. ([ATTACH]97048[/ATTACH])</p></blockquote><p></p>

Verification