DATV Express

[N6GKJ]

Hello Everyone,

I received my DATV Express transmitter!

A few things to note from my experience, first off the team of guys that developed this product are WAYYYYYY under compensated for the effort! This thing works as expected. I did have some learning curve to overcome, but Charles spent a considerable amount of time with me through email to fix my issues and get me up to speed.

First off, the drivers that come with Ubuntu are not completely accurately designed. I have some issue with no video but both audio channels working fine. I was also able send white noise from the tuner card. I did not have an S-video cable to test that port. My particular card is the PVR350 a dual input PVR250. This caused me some grief. If you have a situation similar to the one I encountered, look for your video by stepping through the options in the DATV Express GUI. When you get this far you will see the option box to look through. I employed a trial and error process until I found my video.
My capture card is the PVR350

Input 0 seems to be the tuner (white noise on video and audio)
Input 1 seems to be the composite video and audio input (no video, but full audio)
Input 2 seems to be the S-Video input(untested)
Input 3 did not produce a result
Input 4 did not produce a result
Input 5 is the working composite video and audio input for my PVR350 Card (working very well)
Input 6-10 are untested by me

If you have experience with the Digilite, this is a different critter altogether. My Digilite Tx is Ultram VCO equipped with the external programmer interface. It is great for 23cm only. However, anyone who has built a Digilite knows very well that those pads and parts are pretty small and mistakes are easy to make. I had several solder bridges or parts that did not solder down. Mostly POTS.

So when I got this fully assembled board that does 100 Mhz to nearly 2.5 Ghz, needless to say that I was impressed. Here in the USA, we have ATV spectrum at 70cm, 33 cm, 23cm and 13 cm. This board will cover all that spectrum. Just need to build some relay switching with SMA relays and multiple amps to get them all. And of course since this is so frequency agile. getting on 6cm or 3cm by using a transverter is a piece of cake. I use a lot of DEMI products and this board will drive nearly all of them.

The DATV Express software on 32 bit Ununtu 12.04 machine installed error free and runs error free. I am having issues with x64. Could be the known Opteron issues that are preventing me from being able to make that install work out. More to follow.

I have the following cards to test now that I have my board operational:

PVR150
PVR250
PVR350 (working)
PVR500
HVR1300
PVR USB2

I am very excited about my results and as the software and hardware matures, we are going to have a low cost, solid platform to operate with.

I am already looking at suggestions and improvements.

PVR500 has 2 mpeg encoder chips! that is a natural for a multiple stream tx. I bought one from EBAY with the second header for $20US and a second one at a local Computer store for $10US. I am seeing these things all over the place dirt cheap. I am buying every one I can find just to be able to pass them along to others who would want them.

So that being said:

Multiple Transport Streams with capture cards that can support it.
provide a 2 pin BERG jumper next to the power jack to support remote power switch
provide another multi pin BERG jumper for remote viewing the status LEDS
there is a small SMD Chip next to the RF out connector that runs very hot... add a heat sink?
provide a USB BERG Jumper next to the USB connector for using PC Style remote USB connectors

All in all, I highly recommend looking at this as your station DATV Transmitter. I will probably buy another for mobile/portable use.

As I play with this and find more goodies or issues for the team to resolve I will post my results here after the team has a chance to work through them.

73 all...

Ron