BATC bursary - GB3NQ transmit approved

Details of the bursaries provided by the BATC
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g8gtz
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Joined: Wed Apr 07, 2010 6:26 pm

BATC bursary - GB3NQ transmit approved

Post by g8gtz » Mon Jan 31, 2022 9:50 am

The following application has been approved:

Date of application: 11/05/2021

Project description: Over the past year we have upgraded GB3NQ TV repeater to have 3 x Ryde Receivers on 2m, 70cm and 23cm with the help of a bursary from the BATC. As the repeater currently uses 19" rack mount NDS Encoders, Modulator and a 61Mhz upconverter to 1316Mhz these incomming HD signals are going back out as a SD signal.

Our hope is to replace the very old and power hungry 265W rack mount profressional kit with the Portsdown 4 and Pluto combo. These of course consume a fraction of the power and can be set to run in HD and occupy less bandwidth. Currently we run the repeater a 2Ms/s at 1/2 with mpeg video DVBS, changing this to 1Ms/s 2/3 with h264 and DVS-2 will improve the video quality greatly and almost certainly provide better coverage for the same transmitter power.

GB3NQ is currently being installed into a new temperature controlled 19" full height rack and so it would be an ideal time to upgrade the transmitter. In fact some experimentation has begun on how we might utilise HDMI switches with the current repeater logic!
And finally when we applied for the Ryde bursary we did say "When a good number of users are active we will replace the old encoder,
modulator and up-convertor with a Portsdown 4 transmitter" that time has come!
Benefits to ATV community: We have seen an increase in DATV activity here in Cornwall with a number of Portsdown systems being built. The Pluto device also has been a favourite and some are using direct with a PC web browser and hardware encoder. We hope with the introduction of HD ouput from our repeater will attract more users and further experimentation here in Cornwall.

Total amount of funding requested:
£312.17

Details of costs / items:
Raspberry Pi 4 4Gb £54
Case and Screen for above £72
Heatsink £14
PSU £7
SD Card £10
Adalm Pluto £165.17
We would fund the following...
Various lengths of HDMI Cables £50 approx
HDMI Switches £30 approx
Other items as required.

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