Most of my very limited operating is now on the microwave bands. Over the last couple of years I have been building up a set of transverters to a common design so that I can swap them easily on the mast. These so far cover 13cms, 9cms, 6cms and 3cms. I also have 24GHz using a converted commercial link unit.

9cm Station

This is lightweight and can be mast mounted. It is based on a DB6NT transverter which has a noise figure of 0.9 dB and an output of 250mW. This is complemented by an HP ex Ionica amplifier that gives about 12-15W of output power. I use a dish antenna with a home made feed horn.

6cm Station

This is also lightweight and can be mast mounted. It is based on a DB6NT transverter which has a noise figure of 0.9 dB and an output of 250mW. I have added a power amplifier based on a 7 GHz surplus unit which gets up to 4W or so of RF. The antenna is a dish, (I have several) with various feeds. Frequently 6cms and 3cms are co-mounted and share a dish.

3cm Station

I have three 3 cm transverters. The first one I built from the UK design by Charlie, G3WDG. This has a commercial 1 W SSPA purchased for £20 at a microwave round table. It has a 144 MHz IF and works most of the time. The second transverter is based on the Qualcomm boards from the USA. This uses the 1W Qualcomm SSPA, again with a 144 MHz IF. The third is based on a DB6NT MK3 transverter with a 500mW commercial PA driving a DownEast Microwave 8W PA. This is built to be lightweight and mounts on my mast, it has a 432 MHz IF, a 1.2 dB noise figure and produces around 3W of RF. I need to improve the drive to the final amplifier to get the full 8W. I have several dishes for 3cms, one 50cm offset shown below plus a 60cm prime focus with a home made scalar feed.

Best DX from the home site is around 300 km. I mainly use the equipment as a portable station. Here is a picture of a portable setup on my Navara with 6cms and 3cms sharing a dish during a test. I don't drive it like this! The Yagi is for the 144MHz talkback. I have since improved the system with lower loss feeder for 6cms and a quick to joint together join pole with a rotator.

24 GHz Station

My 24 GHz station is based on a microwave link transceiver. This is only used portable as it has a miserly 250mW of output and 4 dB NF. The antenna has 35 dBi gain and is integral with the transverter. Here it is in action at Hackpen IO91CL - and although you can't see it, it is receiving G3PHO from Wales. This unit also fits on the Navara mast as above.

I am working on upgrading this system to 2W with a 45cm dish and 2 dB NF.