[hpsdr] Direction Finder using Dual-Mercury Diversity Operation

[Curt, WE7U]

On Thu, 22 Sep 2011, Joe Martin K5SO wrote:

> I think a self-contained (new) board design would be the cleanest approach if 
> there is demand for an efficient single-board DF rig.

Are there advantages to going this route as compared to say a doppler scanning setup?

Perhaps a smaller beamwidth with the Mercury setup at a greatly increased cost?  You also have frequency agility with the dual-Mercury setup that you wouldn't have with a doppler scanning setup.  Hmmm...  Could combine the two techniques and switch 4 antennas in a dopplescant mode, feeding into ONE Mercury, then use the process that phase information in the software to give a display.  Best of both worlds?  Then you'd have lower cost plus frequency agility.

I always thought it would be great to have some frequency agile doppler scanning receivers sitting on multiple repeater sites in the county.  When a plane went down we could activate all of them and get an initial direction to go hunt for it.  'cuz of all the mountainous terrain here an initial direction might be all it would be good for, but anything's better than nothing.

-- 
Curt, WE7U.        http://www.eskimo.com/~archer
APRS Wiki:  http://info.aprs.net/

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