Easy 472kHz Superhet

Just a thought, a 4.000 MHz (industrial xtal) signal mixed with a 3.530 MHz (80m xtal) signal would result in 470kHz, somewhat shy of our band.

The 4MHz would make a nice intermediate frequency, with a cheap ladder filter. Tweaking QRG is hence restricted to the 3.5x MHz frequency

A couple of options

• pull 80m xtal down
• pen the 80m xtal down (super VXO)

A thought outside the box could be to get dividers into the equation. Douple 3.530 and you will get 7.060. As stated above, the 3.53 are just a bit too high.
Expanded Spectrum Systems sells 40m crystals, which, divided by 2, would result in in-band frequencies.

• 7.042 MHz => 479kHz
• 7.050 MHz => 475kHz
• 7.055 MHz => 472.5kHz

Also here, a super VXO would be an option.

For a WSPR transceiver, the 7.050 MHz option seems ideal. A small downward pull of some hundred Hz should be easily doable without compromising stability. Mind you, WSPR need a "USB dial frequency" of 474.2kHz.

600m Octaplumb update II

A while ago, I built the Octaplumb octagonal RX loop, made from heavy gauge copper wire and PVC plumbing parts (see earlier posts). The loop was tuned to 504kHz, since that was what we had at the time.

Very recently, we know got a slightly different range. Hence, the center QRG of the Octaplumb had to be changed. Some experimentation showed that adding 82pF to the 680pF which are in parallel to the butterfly configed poly-vary-con.

472kHz I/Q-SDR kit

Nothing is for free, up to now, there is no kit available for 472kHz.
However, there is one for 136kHz, which can be easily modified to match the new band.
Check out box73's longwave I/Q-SDR kit.

You will see that a 15MHz signal is divided by 25. This results in a 600kHz signal which is further divded by 4 in order to create the phase shift. All in all, this ends up in a center frequency of 150kHz.

We can use the same oscillator and divide the signal by 8. This results in 1.875MHz, which will be further divided by 4 providing a center frequency of 468.75kHz.
With a sampling rate of mere 24kbps, or +/- 12kHz bandwidth, the entire band (472 to 479kHz) will be covered.

The digital part is rather simple to modify. A suitable ripple counter could be the 74HC93.
The frontend is even more simple... just pick a 455kHz i.f.-filter/transformer and replace C1, C2 and L1.

Should the old experimental range, somewhere above 500kHz, be a desired range, the additional modification would simply replacing the 15MHz canned oscillator with a 16MHz one.

I will see if I can persuade the OM at box73.de to provide such a kit.

600m Signal Source

As we know by now, 472-479kHz it will be. In an earlier post I revealed some "cheap" frequencies which would mix into the new band.

Some further options using industrial crystals:

DigiKey sells a 4.754687MHz crystal... count to (divide by) 5 and further divide by two results in 475kHz. A super-VXO could be an option here.

The above mentioned count to 5 solution applies to the following crystals, found at the same source: 9.494531MHz, 9.509375MHz and 9.545MHz. Other crystals would allow for an out of band I/Q-SDR LO: 9.600MHz, 9.625MHz and 9.7941MHz. Here, the chain would be count to 5, divide by 4.

Further: 18.9375MHz, 19.0625MHz  and 19.069928MHz and for I/Q-SDR: 18.869MHz, 18.8696MHz, 19.200MHz, 19.280MHz and 19.440MHz. Consequenctly, the chain would be count to 5, divide by 8.

Plus: 28.59375MHz, 28.5938MHz, 28.636MHz, 28.6363MHz and 28.63636MHz (count to 3, count to 5, divide by 4).

Taking it even higher: 38.000MHz and 38.00053MHz (count to 5, divide by 16). I/Q-SDR: 38.400MHz and 38.880MHz.

Also found at DigiKey: a 7.680MHz crystal. Divide by 16 results in 480kHz. Again, a super-VXO and some (severe) down pull should generate a signal in the band. This crystal provides easy access to I/Q-SDR: LO spot om 480kHz, even a mere 24kbps sample rate would cover the whole band. The same applies to the 15.360MHz found at the same store.

All the above mentioned crystals are of industrial kind. One option would be order one for the favorit solution, the other option would be to carefully watch out for those frequencies before dumping old computers & Co.

600m SDR RX (TX)

As we know, presently there are a couple of frequencies of the 600m band open to amateur radio operators.
Most of authorities allow transmission somewhere above 500kHz. In The Netherlands the permitted range is 501-505kHz. In the future, depending on the decision of the WRC12, this will possibly change to 472 to 480kHz. The U.S.of A. proposed the following ranges 461-469 and 471-478 kHz.

Lets look at the (inexpensive) option the box73 SDR. The 80m version of this receiver uses a 14.000MHz oscillator. Operation on the 600m band can be achieved by changing the front-end filter and the SDR-LO.
Considering 48kbps sampling, the LO-frequencies would be the following

• QRG: 470kHz - LO: 1.843MHz
• QRG: 500kHz - LO: 2.000MHz

This will result is RX-ranges of:

• 460.8 -/+ 24 = 436.8 .. 484.8
• 500.0 -/+ 24 = 476.0 .. 524.0

Concluding, a decent 600m receiver can be built with LOs using regular canned oscillators.

600m with CB-XTALs follow up

Hi there... I am back!
Presently, amateurs in The Netherlands are really happy, not only have we got the permission to transmit on 4m, we also may transmit on 600m again. For the time being between 501 and 505kHz.
For this range (well, to the upper QRG of 504kHz) this article could lead to a cheap signal source.

However, in about a month's time, we will know is we need to redesign our exciters, i.e. to the range 472 to 480kHz. So, lets have another look at the cheap crystal solution.
The new range is not that easy really. One solution would be the mixing of two standard xtal frequencies:

• 4915.2 - 4433.6 = 481.6 somewhat high, could be pulled into the range

A spot on solution would be a 10m QRP crystal (28.060MHz) on its fundamental mixed with a 9.8304MHz standard crystal:

• 9830.4 - 28060/3 = 9830.4 - 9353.3 = 477.1

Another spot on option: a 40m QRP crystal, mixed with a 6.5536MHz standard xtal.

• 7030 - 6553.6 = 476.4

Starting from lower frequencies, crystals from box73.de:

• 14745.6 - 14270 = 475.6
• 7025 - 6553.6 = 471.4 (pull!)
• 3550 - 3072 = 478
• 4000 - 3530 = 470 (pull!) (*)
• 3555 - 3072 = 483 (pull!)

Subractive mixing has the advantage that some thermal effects may cancel. Assume to us several standard crystals in a super-VXO.
Mind you, the higher the frequencies, the easier to pull, i.e. create a nice tuning range. However, lower frequencies will give better stability.

(*) Note, there is a 4.00MHz ceramic resonator, which will allows for a nice VFO. Use a Pierce oscillator to obtain a QRG above the ceramic resonator's series resonance.

SDR for the 600m band

Some short not on an idea for the 600m band.
The typical SDR, as we all know, uses 4x the center frequency so that the 90 phase-shifts can easily be created by flip-flops.

In 2012, the Netherlands will most likely open the range 501-505kHz for ham radio operators. I figure a simple RX (maybe also TX) solution could be a 2.000MHz canned oscillator. This will get us spot on 500kHz center frequency, just as you may want. Comfortable 1 to 5kHz audio, which any sound card can handle easily, with a sample rate of only 24kHz. A further experiment should show if side-band suppression is required at all. I figure, a decent pre-selector should be enough already.
Should however, following a decision at the WRC-12, the range open to hams change to the range proposed by CEPT (472 to 480kHz), a 2.000MHz SDR-LO would be somewhat too high. In this case, the oscillator could easily be swapped with a 1.8432MHz one. Resulting in a center frequency of 460.8kHz. Audio up to 20kHz would still be somewhat a challenge for cheap sound hardware, never the less, a sample rate of 48kHz would cover it all.

No to the TX-part of it. One could either use a sound card generated signal, as provided by some software solution. One could also thing of generating an I/Q modulation signal at 4x the audio signal, divide and phase shift similarly to the LO chain. Unfortunately, we would now have a rich audio square wave. I figure some severe filtering will be required here, in order to end up with a sine wave.
I would not consider an AF phase-shifting network. I believe the frequency range is to great as provide accurate phase-shifting.
However, as in the RX part, it may be conceivable to filter the side-band at the RF range. A series of tank and trap circuits could possibly be enough. Mind you, the aerial matching itself is very selective too.