6 Apr 2013

ATV today

Amateur TV seems to be in decline these days with fewer and fewer interested. A well known ATV local G3KKD reports activity well down in recent times.

In a move aimed at reversing the trend G8YTZ has announced some Amateur Digital TV TX and RX modules. However, when visiting Justin's site I was flabergasted by the prices: over £700 for the transmitter and  over £300 for the receiver! To attract newcomers surely some simple low cost modules retailing below £100 are needed.
at 23:28

5 comments:

G8JGO said...

I joined BATC last week as I've become interested in DATV. As I noob I asked about lowest cost entry. On RX side a satellite set top box can be used with a 70cm up converter. That gives you 70/24cm RX. I understand that a RadComm article will be (has been) published on this topic.

On the BATC website, they sell kits for the digilite DATV TX system at affordable costs. https://batc.org.uk/shop/hardware-and-kits

Cheers. G8JGO.

Sun Apr 07, 08:32:00 am GMT+1
Anonymous said...

775 pounds hmmm... Keep in-mind this modulator/exciter is DVB-S and DVB-T capable. That animal is a far cry from your traditional analog ATV transmitter.

Commercial DVB modulators easily cost ten times more than this. In-fact, if this box was DVB-S2 capable at around the same price, it would be a commercially disruptive product.

This doesn't look so much like your typical ham equipment price bloat (i.e., Elecraft), it's truly high-tech.

Regards, David

Sun Apr 07, 09:19:00 am GMT+1
G1KQH said...

You have got to be a bit nutty to pay those sort of prices, but there is always someone out there who always will? The price of which could buy you a nice mid range HF radio.

One pays his money and takes his choice.


73 Steve

G1KQH




Sun Apr 07, 01:07:00 pm GMT+1
G8YTZ said...

Hi all,

The digilite is an excellent project and highly recommended as a home brew as the alternative DATV Express, but with either of these projects, don't underestimate the time and money you need to invest to get one going. My product (based on the well proved SR-Systems boards) brings a pulg and play solution to the market in a compact case. I also plan to have a repeter solution avaliable in June 2013.

Regarding DVB-S2 I can support this as well and there will be a product announcement coming later in April.

Remember that there is an entry level 30-470 MHz DVB-S only version @ £650 including UK VAT and Shipping which is the better solution if 70cms is the primary objective.

The units have a very good MER and the software is highly developed and reliable, the same modulator board is in fact used in some commercial offerings at much higher prices.

The MPEG-2 encoder is a high-speed design - so ideal for QSO work.

The receiver option is unique in that it supports DVB-T Narrow-Band as well as all the international DVB-T bandwidth standards. It has a very fast aquisition time, is automatic - set the bandwidth and frequency and that is it!

The RS-232 support of the Tx and Rx means that there is potential to intergrate with Ham Radio Deluxe, but I've not got plans to develop this myself at the current time.

73's
Justin G8YTZ

Sun Apr 07, 02:24:00 pm GMT+1
Anonymous said...

At least for the receive side, low-cost DVB-T dongles (at less than $20) should make it possible for people to get involved at very low cost.
I've been able to tune mine at both 70cm and 23cm (23cm required a software hack, but the hardware does work up there).

Regards, Sivan

Tue Apr 09, 06:22:00 am GMT+1

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