>Any one have any comparisons between the Elecraft
>Transverters and the Ten Tec Transverters?
First, What do you intend to do on the VHF bands and how far up do you want
to go? TT currently has transverters for the 6 & 2 meter bands. There is a
mod for the 2m version to move it up to the 220 band so you can get there
also.
Elecraft currently has transverters for 6, 2 & 220 with the 440 (432MHz)
unit due soon (months).
Differences? TT is a kit (factory assembled available) that is always
enjoyable although some of those parts are getting much smaller than the
sockets for your 6146 finals. ;-) The Elecraft units are very high quality
and are designed with the K2 in mind (they fully integrate into the overall
radio including display of frequency.) I was at the Southeastern VHF Society
conference this past weekend and Elecraft had their K2 on display with all 3
transverters stacked on the side. They make a very clean looking set-up with
impressive performance numbers. All RF & IF connections are with BNC
connectors - no RCA Phono jacks that I saw. As an added 'nice to look at'
the transverter in use illuminates its little band logo.
For a do-it-yourself kit of very good quality, look at the DEMI (Down East
Microwave) transverters. Steve Costro is well known and highly respected in
the VHF/UHF community for his line of kits (some available as plug-n-play)
for 6 meters thru 10GHz. The TT 526 was initially designed to work with the
DEMI line. Steve also sells amp kits to get the Tx power up to near EME
level. Control boxes are also available for sequencing the transverter, Rx
pre-amp, PA system. (No, VHFers do NOT use the PTT to send code. It is used
to switch up the whole Tx/Rx chain and then we use the straight key, bug or
paddles with our choice of Iambic A or B keying for the actual RF thru the
system.)
Do the TT transverters work? Sure do. I've worked VEs from W4 land and had
honest 59 reports on 6ssb - but that was when the sun was killing the DC
bands. With the approaching bottom of the solar cycle, QRP on VHF just
doesn't go far!!! Look into WSJT and work the rocks on 6 & 2 (maybe even
222). Top Band guru, K7BV, managed VUCC on 6m using WSJT in the past 22
months. The 'typical' WSJT meteor scatter station runs 50~150w to a 3~5
element beam on 6m and 100~150w to 8~13 elements on the 2m band.
Just for an added bonus, BPL doesn't bother the VHF bands too much - yet
anyway - but the harmonics can be heard by some of the more sensitive
stations.
73 es hope to hear you off the rocks
KD4GT/EM74
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