Altair's N4YWK Ham Radio Page

Altair's N4YWK Ham Radio Page

Bands

1750 Meters - soon to be a new ham band, ten times lower than 160 meters. I am active here under FCC part 15.
HF bands - global communications, sometimes you will catch me on 40m QRP CW, or when I'm at work, I can operate other HF bands.
2 Meters - local repeaters add range, phone and voice mail, but not long ago only CRAZY people used those USELES frequencies above 50 MHz!
440 MHz - more of the same, including repeaters.
1.2 Ghz - my repeater, links, and beacon, plus see my ludicrous physiognamy on FM TV...
2.4 Ghz - is the easiest band for homebrew, tons of hottest technology new parts cheap or free!
10 GHz - that ain't so high...voice, video, beacons. I get cheap surplus commercial equipment for modules and parts.

N4YWK primary station

Grid Square EM74oa

Latitude 34-00-28

Longitude 84-46-07

Site Elevation 1020 ft [engineered]

Antenna Height 80 feet

H.A.A.T. (FCC 90.309) 156.99 ft

Recent Projects
I am always working on several radio or electronic projects. Here's a few of the recent ones:
Construction of high altitude balloon payload controller, sends ID and telemetry, moves TV camera view mirror. Uses a Parallax BASIC Stamp. SASE gets schematics, and source code. The source code is available here. This tough little machine has flown above 100,000 ft three times, it takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin' !
Design and construction of a multisite linked repeater system. For details, see Atlanta Community Amateur Radio Emergency Services.(C.A.R.E.S.)
Design of 1.2 GHz link exciter board which is a drop-in replacement for the exciter board in a GE Master II radio. Perfect for a multisite UHF repeater system!
Wanna get started in microwave? Voice, video, and radar projects use cheap and versatile Gunnplexers. These and non-Gunnplexer projects here.
Afraid of heights? Stick close to the Earth below 0.5 MHz! Our planet is burbling and whispering its radio voice as it traces its orbit, and you can tune in with these projects: Low ELF noise loop preamp; using a selective levelmeter as an LF receiver; modifications for your DX-440 or Sangaean AT-803 to improve LF performance; a handheld rhiometer from a fishing rod; use a living tree as a radio antenna; software tuned signal processing uses your PC to receive 0.001 Hz to 0.5 Hz.
How about communications on the low bands? Listen for my beacon on 184.320 kHz, callsign YWK. Design published in The Lowdown and complete schematics and source code available here.
The Hawg Amp is a simple one-transistor preamplifier for receiving 440 MHz ATV. Performance: NF=1db, G=15 db typ, not bad for a cheap bipolar transistor. It follows in the grand Hawg tradition originating with the Hawg Fence Antenna, the most db per dollar in ATV receive antennas, by the loquacious 'Kip' Turner, W4KIP.
Efficient 1.2 GHz and 2.4 GHz dish antenna feeds for consumer TV satellite dishes. See microwave page.

Future Projects
You can tell by now I don't stand on convention or even sanity when it comes to a technical project. Some of these may not ever be built or may not even be possible. But then again, the previous list has a few which seemed very unlikely until I actually did them.

Construction of a high power beacon and antenna near 1.5 kHz
Get my ATV station back on the air.
Detecting radio signatures of earth tremors and meteor showers.
Design of a home built Free Electron Maser type microwave source, tuneable from 100 GHz to 500 GHz.

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N4YWK primary station
Grid Square	EM74oa
Latitude	34-00-28
Longitude	84-46-07
Site Elevation	1020 ft [engineered]
Antenna Height	80 feet
H.A.A.T. (FCC 90.309)	156.99 ft