ARLA/CLUSTER: GB3RAL, baliza em 5290 kHz.

[João Gonçalves Costa]

Mike Willis, G0MJW, has installed new hardware for the Amateur Radio propagation beacon GB3RAL, on 5.290MHz

The change took place at approx 08:00 on Monday, December 20 and initial reports indicate the beacon is working well.

The original pulse sequence has been replaced by a PSK31 message.

The driver is one of the G4JNT DDS boards with GPS used for timing.

The PA is a Pennywhistle from the Open HPSDR project.
http://openhpsdr.org/wiki/index.php?title=PENNYWHISTLE

In order to get enough gain the Pennywhistle input was modified. The 56Ohm input loading resistors were replaced with 200 ohms and an extra turn was put on the secondary of the input transformer. The Bias was adjusted to 350mA. 

There is a 5-pole low pass filter on the output
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ad6xy/5234418346/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ad6xy/5233794219/

A picture of the new hardware in its case can be seen at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ad6xy/5273804622/

5MHz Beacons
http://www.rsgb-spectrumforum.org.uk/5mhz%20beacons.htm