Hello Dom sorry I missed your subsequent posts. I checked mine again and it really does appear to be better. I am beginning to doubt my instruments again! I will take it to work and check it on a more modern calibrated R&S spectrum analyser. Nobody is interested because most of them have such hi...

Indeed Scott. In my defense I use modern instruments at work every day and so I had all but forgotten about these limitations. I bought the HP 8562A as I have started to use microwave bands and needed to know what I was transmitting. I had no way of knowing what was happening on 10368 MHz and so it ...

That is not 11W but 13W as well.

Well how embarrassed am I? The spurs are from the HP-8562A! Here is what it looks like with a proper spectrum analyser, as I expected it to be. https://www.dropbox.com/s/jjfk3yeydxotg5d/ANAN-10%2011W_CW_SPURS_300Hz_RBW.jpg?dl=1 I am not ashamed to admit that I am wrong. 73 Conrad PA5Y

w-u-2-o wrote:What spectrum analyzer are you using? From the plots it looks like an HP. I've got an HP8560E here.

I used an HP8562A however for the IC-7300 I used an E4406B, I'll re-do the ANAN-10 with the E4406B in a while.

Regards

Conrad

As promised IC-7300 at 100W CW. I had to use a better instrument with an even lower RBW to see what was going on. I used peak hold for 30 seconds. I think that the standards are woefully inadequate by amateur weak signal standards. That's why suburban amateurs hear loads of noise. Equipment may be c...

Of course there are.

The budget IC7300 is better than this. Tomorrow I will do some plots. It is difficult in a superhet but not so difficult from a DAC. It can be solved I am sure of that.

Conrad

Hello all. I have an ANAN-10 that I intend to use on 6m with an SSPA and with 144 and 432 transverters which will be used on the intended band and as drivers for microwave transverters. There are lot of RX spurs on 28 and 50 MHz but that is the subject of a separate topic. I will concentrate on in b...

Using 2 Tone testing I am a little surprised at the two tone performance of the ANAN-10 at 8W. The TX output however is very good so I wonder if I have a bad PA? Here are some images: First 28 MHz from the TX out with the PA disabled this is at the same level that produces 8W PEP in later measuremen...

Hello Gary do you have a quiet rural location? Is the LNA on or do you have an external LNA? How much does the noise floor increase when you switch between a dummy load and your 6m antenna? What gain to you use when set to med, fast of fixed AGC. maybe you have things set up optimally and I do not. ...

That's fine Walter. I had already explained that it was possible to get rid of the artifacts by setting the threshold higher. However in doing so you definitely lose sensitivity on signals close to the noise floor. I have other SDR receivers that do not exhibit this behavior. So I cannot agree that ...

OK Joe thanks. I think that maybe a resistor does not work, I must have been mistaken there. Perhaps what is needed is a variable noise floor that will occur when an antenna is connected. Can you hear it with a simple wire antenna on 10m?

Regards

Conrad

You will have no problem hearing it if it is there. The only instruments needed are attached to to the side of your head. It is glaringly obvious. Maybe it does not happen with the 8000. I have observed it on two ANAN-100Ds and an ANAN-10 so cannot comment.

73

Conrad PA5Y

Hello Joe. EXACTLY! I believe that It happens because the AGC is unsure what to do at very low levels, there is some kind of toggling going on. The only way to get rid of these artifacts is by setting the threshold so high that you will lose sensitivity. So for weak signals it is imperative that fix...

If you have a quiet location try the following. As an experiment go on 6m or 10m late at night when the band has died and use fast or medium AGC. If on 6m Make sure that you have the 6m LNA on. Set your threshold to be just above the noise floor as recommended in the user guides and listen to the ba...

The multiple 'ghost' signals are often caused by a badly adjusted TX chain but not always. On occasion I have seen them caused by aircraft scatter and other multipath effects. Of course non linearity in the RX chain can cause it but if you have a purely digital audio path then I cannot imagine that ...

I think that as long as you use a VAC/VMB path almost any combination of gain is absolutely fine provided that the input to the decoder is sensible. What we are interested in is signal to noise ratio. Shifting the levels using the RX1 level and VMB gain is totally benign because the 'volume controls...

Alternatively as is normal practice a block diagram of the clock regime could have been provided. This gives unambiguous information. Why should a user be expected to consult schematics and even worse source code? Even my TS2000 manual has this information. In fact I probably do not have the ability...

OK so that must mean that the 128.8 MHz clock must be 'compared' to the 10 MHz reference at all times irrespective of it's source. I am trying to determine the merit of a fitting better quality 122.8 MHz (lower PN) sample clock oscillator. The two clocks must be locked in some way otherwise what is ...

Hello all.

When an external 10MHz clock is used is the 122.8 MHz clock locked to the 10MHz clock using an FPGA based PLL or is the 122.8 MHz Xtal no longer used and the sample clock generated with by a multiplier?

73

Conrad PA5Y

Hello Scott. It must be a register or timing problem as a ten fold reduction in the frequency of the events cannot be anything else. The relay did not suddenly become 10 times better. Anyway tonight I did a pure signal mod pretty much exactly as you did and something dawned on me after doing so. The...

I have done 3 inputs 10,000 transitions and the sticky relay issue still exists but at a greatly reduced regularity. The occurrences are now approximately 2% of the time. A factor of more than 10 times less often. This is tolerable to me. I am not sure if the reliability is affected by the PTT metho...

Scott is correct. Specifically right click and save as results in a corrupted rbf file when using the GitHub repository. The bootloader application appears to be happy with the file and erases then programs the firmware as expected. There is absolutely no indication that your rbf is corrupted. Until...

Apache did contact me as did Doug W5WC. They suggested trying a few combinations of FW with PowerSDR mRX PS v3.4.9, starting with Angelia_r6.0.rbf. The good news is that this appears to have fixed the problem. I have not run exhaustive tests yet but will do tonight. I have tried 1000 transitions on ...

So in an attempt to investigate the 'sticky relay' problem on my ANAN-100D I decided to upgrade the firmware for my ANAN-100D to Angelia_v6.0rbf. I have upgraded the FW before with the HPSDR programmer without any issues. Anyway unbelievably I had a power outage for a few seconds which of course bri...

If Apache do not have any specific suggestions I will do exactly that.

ICs used as drivers do not usually fail intermittently but fail totally, anyway I would be highly delighted if you are right Scott. Hardware failure is preferable to hardware design errors. No response from Apache yet. I expected some response this morning but I'll give it another day before I start...

Hello Tony, I have contacted apache support. I expect that they will advise me what to do on Monday. The radio is unusable as it is so I may as well get this sorted.

Regards

Conrad

Arggghhhhhh, I also have the same sticky relay issues with the ANT1, 2 and 3 inputs, just much less frequently. I think that the unit has to go to Apache labs after all.

Conrad

Hello Scott, I will do so when it is pertinent. At the moment I have more fundamental stuff to do such as 10MHz distribution, a rack box for the LO sources and transverters to put in boxes. It feels like a mountain, but eventually I will be ready to do this. Actually I will only require band changin...