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Re: [VHFcontesting] Bought a 24GHz gunnplexer...now what?

To: <waisean@gmail.com>, <vhfcontesting@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] Bought a 24GHz gunnplexer...now what?
From: Steve Kavanagh via VHFcontesting <vhfcontesting@contesting.com>
Reply-to: Steve Kavanagh <sjkavanagh1@yahoo.ca>
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2017 11:44:39 +0000 (UTC)
List-post: <mailto:vhfcontesting@contesting.com>
There's a few (old!) articles on Gunn oscillator gear at 
http://www.kwarc.org/10ghz/index.html which may help a bit. I still have a 
couple of 24 GHz rigs based on the RF portions of Kustom speed radars, which 
have been pressed into service regularly in various contests for many years.  
But at least in this area there is zero regular activity on wideband FM now, so 
two rigs are essential, one to keep and one to lend to a friend.

There were a few peculiarities to these rigs.  One was that the warm-up drift 
was greater than the electronic tuning range of the oscillator, which 
necessitated using a tunable IF strip.  Second was that they came with 
circularly polarized horn antennas with an odd circular waveguide interface 
which was not amenable to replacement with dishes, making serious dx rather 
difficult.

I managed to find a surplus cavity frequency meter, so I was able to set my two 
oscillators to frequencies about 30 MHz apart near 24.125 GHz  (I think they 
were nominally 24.120 and 24.150 GHz but the rigs are lent out at the moment so 
I don't have access to the frequency labels).

73,
Steve VE3SMA
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