GB3HV DATV RX over 155 Miles

[g7lwt]

Hi,

due to the recent enhancement of conditions it has finally been possible to RX some DATV in the North West of England; Mike, G8LES, very kindly enabled the digital output of GB3HV at approximately 22:00 last night (20/02/08), so that Brian, G3SMU (IO83SO03) Bolton, Lancs, could test his 23cm digital RX over a path of 155 miles.

Brian is using a Fortec Star receiver which I configured to front-end his Echostar SR-50 analogue receiver, using the IF loop through facility. When Mike enabled HV for digital output, Brian used the blind scan/powerscan menu option to automatically resolve the DATV TX from HV. The digital pictures from HV were received at D5 (See: http://tinyurl.com/2xuk6y) for a little while before deep QSB and radar QRM caused severe degradation and loss of the picture.

We are waiting for some UHF to L-Band upconverters to arrive, as per the recent tip from G8ADM (thanks Dave), so Brian and myself will soon be watching for DATV on 70cm as well as 23cm.

Would there be any chance of having HV beacon in DATV briefly on 23cm, from time to time, so we can study the difference in propagation of the new mode?

Brian has asked me to thank Mike for his assistance, including having to use 2m SSB for talkback as all the FM channels were busy during the lift.

73 de Darren
G7LWT
PS. This message was posted three times to the "UK_ATV" Yahoo group and didn't appear once; I'm really pleased to have access to a realtime forum, provided by BATC. I'd like to say a big thank you to the team!