10FT8R - improved schematic

A few people have wanted a clearer schematic. I have now uploaded it to my website. It was produced by Jay W5OLF. 

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/hf-mf-and-lf/homebrew/10ft8r-rx .

10m FT8 with the 10FT8R and the tiny indoor loop

Since before breakfast I have been on 10m FT8 RX with the 10FT8R and the tiny indoor loop. 26 spots on RX so far (at 0803z). The loop is thin wire just 50cm across, indoors on the shack windowsill. The 10FT8R is a simple direct conversion receiver shown again below. 

As mentioned yesterday, I got the 14.040MHz crystal from 3rd Planet Solar in the USA. It was very inexpensive. The whole RX is incredibly inexpensive as you can see!  

My thanks again to Jay W5OLF for doing the schematic - much better than my hand-drawn effort!

UPDATE 0855z: At 0815z, I changed the thin wire on my tiny loop to 6mm diameter copper central heating pipe. It tunes more sharply so is probably a bit more efficient. At the moment, 52 stations spotted today on RX.

UPDATE 1018z:  Currently, 86 stations spotted on 10m FT8 RX (see map).

UPDATE 1237z:  113 stations spotted on RX so far today.

Sunspots - Monday May 24th 2021

 Solar flux is 79 and the SSN 30. A=4 and K=1.

Museum - NOT amateur radio

Our local museum opened again last Thursday. Today was the first day open on a Sunday. They had the local folk club there.

Slowly things are getting back to normal. 

Granddaughter 10 - NOT amateur radio

It is hard to believe she is 10 on Tuesday. This collage shows her over the years. 

10FT8R proper schematic

With many thanks to Jay W5OLF here is a proper schematic of this little 10m FT8 RX. At one time I had a copy of SPlan so could create schematics properly although I have no idea where it is now! 

I bought the crystal at low cost from 3rd Planet Solar in the USA. They have good stocks and currently are $1.50 each.  I pulled the crystal down to 14.037MHz. If you can find a low cost source of 14.037MHz crystals, the inductor in series with the crystal probably won't be needed.  I needed enough series inductance with the crystal to pull down 3kHz. Moulded chokes are probably fine in this application. I used a toroid inductor just because it was at hand.

Jay is working on a PCB and improvements.

10m FT8 RX with the tiny indoor loop antenna and the 10FT8R RX

As of about 0817z I turned on my 10m FT8 RX. As yet, just a spot of a Polish station. It is now 0836z.

UPDATE 1116z:  96 stations spotted on RX so far today. 

UPDATE 1506z: 237 stations spotted on 10m FT8 RX today with the 10FT8R RX. Most look like Es. See map.

UPDATE 1848z: 343 stations spotted today on 10m FT8 RX with the 10FT8R RX and the tiny indoor loop.

UPDATE 2150z: 403 stations spotted on 10m FT8 RX today. Now QRT. 

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/hf-mf-and-lf/homebrew/10ft8r-rx

Sunspots - Sunday May 23rd 2021

 Solar flux is 76 and the SSN 19. A=5 and K=2.

8m band

On earlier posts you may have noticed mention of this band. It is available in very few countries at the moment. Being between 10m and 6m, it could be a very useful allocation. Es and MS could be quite effective. As John has shown, it could also be useful for aircraft scatter.

There are now 2 beacons on the band in Eire. These should certainly be received in the UK and mainland Europe by Es and MS. A few other countries have special access.

See https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/ .

IC-9700

This ICOM radio covers 2m, 70cm and 23cm. It is an all-mode SDR transceiver. I do not own one, but know some who do. It has a lovely colour LCD which is touch screen as well as having good ergonomics. 

On 23cm it has a useful 10W pep. With a reasonable yagi some quite good DX should be possible as long as the coax run is short and the cable low loss. When runs are long or the coax is not too good, people put PAs and preamps up near the antennas.

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/vhfuhfmicrowaves/vhfuhf-commercial-rigs/ic-9700 .