[hpsdr] PowerSDR Alex and Transverters

[Bob Campbell]

Hi All,

One of the dreaded lurkers breaks into print again...

First I have to thank Doug W5WC especially and others who have
contributed to PowerSDR.  Its a wonderful comprehensive piece of
software to support the HPSDR hardware.

This is intended as a heads up when using transverters PowerSDR and Alex
in the HPSDR mix.

My installation consists of the transverter with sometimes 2 stages of
conversion up at the rear of the dish and coming down to the shack at
28Mhz.  So I set up the XVTR set up tab with the offset local oscillator
at start freq-28Mhz, start freq, end freq and check the Xvtr RF Tx box.

My normal HF set up in the Alex control tab is Ant 1 = 80/40M, Ant 2 =
20/15/10M, Ant 3 = 6M.

Now if I select my 432 Xvtr via the VHF+ button and the appropriate
Transverter button, the scales change as expected, but I find the
receive in and the Tx out is directed to Ant 3 (6M) not the 28 as
expected.  If you go to the Alex Control Tab sure enough you can change
the Rx in from any of the inputs using the 6M row of check boxes.  The
HF PA also needs to be disabled in this state so I used one of the O/C
pins on Penny to open the PTT to the PA.  As far as I can tell the band
pass filters are selected correctly at 10M.  May be they could be
by-passed but this I have not checked.

So where to from here?  I am building a pin diode change over switch so
that I can attach my transverters to the Xvtr output on penny to Tx and
the Xvtr Rx input on Alex.  My system uses only one coax for Tx/Rx, the
other old Rx now takes 10Mhx reference up to the dish.  Using spare O/C
outputs on Penny I can select which Transverter I want automatically
from the front panel of PowerSDR as I select the Band.  I will need to
add an extra row of check boxes to the Alex control tab labeled Xvtr
where I can select the appropriate Rx in and if possible no Antenna and
not interact with the HF configuration. This I suspect will require some
code changes to exiting code as well in some of the "if vfofreq < XX" as
well.  I suspect we do not need to invoke the Tx filter board on Alex in
this configuration???  It would be neat too if I could re-instate the
old Tx Meter where we read the output of Penny RF. as this would give an
indication of the Tx transverter drive level.

I would be very interested in comment from others who have been here
before me and those who have far more experience with such maters,
before I rush into the mire.  I have memories of past instances of my
rushing into things I really did not understand and finding I am in way
over my head in the proverbial.

73's
Bob.c
Vk4xv