DigiLite Announcement

[g8cjs]

DigiLite
For some months a number of amateur stations have been active with designs for a lower cost way to produce ATV digital transmissions. A number of individual modules are used, one of which is a PVR recorder card in a PC, this is followed by a new module which takes the USB from the PVR and serializes the streams adding the DVB house keeping codes. A further module then modulates the stream to give the QPSK for a DVB-S transmission.
This concept was seen some time ago from F4DAY, after extensive enhancements and new code and hardware from G4EWJ and M0DTS the devices are reported to produce up to 4MS/s. This is T/Stream rate most frequently used on UK ATV digital repeaters.
Several other groups have built and tested systems offering, feedback and results back to the diverse design group.
The Bournemouth ATV group made the decision to actively convert all there local stations to digital transmission. The DigiLite emerged as a practical way to achieve digital transmission system at a low cost. Dave G8AJN and Colin G4KLB have produced pcb modules for their local group, this will be documented at http://www.g8ajn.tv in the next few weeks.
Dave G8AJN has very kindly offered to produce a single PCB version, excluding the separate PVR, which we hope to make available through BATC, together with a series of articles for CQ TV. We are still planning how this will be achieved, initial thoughts are to have a mini kit with the small modulator chip placed, other SM components should be readily available or can be sourced directly.
Code for the serialser will be in PIC form which Eddie has made available for the PIC.
Look on the http://www.g8ajn.tv site for information concerning the system and the existing individual module arrangement and watch this space for the single PCB version coming through articles in CQTV.
Thanks must go to all those who have made this project possible, ideas and design recommendation came from many sources and this is also reflected in the kind offer for G4EWJ for the latest software.

[g7lwt]

Hi Trevor,

this is wonderful news, thanks for the heads-up. Do you know if the Digilite will be available in 23 cm or 70 cm versions?

73 de Darren
G7LWT

[g8ajn]

Darren,I can confirm that the same basic boards can be used on either frequency, obviously the LO will need to be set for the required 70cm frequency,the Nyquist components will be different for the narrower bandwidth and settings on the PVR program will need to be tweaked to run the low bitrate.Some basic info is on the website on the 'other' page and I am sure more discussions will appear here.Also keep in mind the http://www.M0DTS.co.uk website will carry extra DigiLite information and Rob will no doubt be contributing here too. It is an entirely diy project at this stage until the single board version is tested and approved for the CQTV articles.Hope this is of help.
Dave G8AJN

[g7lwt]

Hi Dave,

thanks for the update. It sounds like early days, we'll all just have to be patient a little while longer - HI HI.

73 de Darren
G7LWT

[g8ajn]

The DigiLite Project website is now live, use the top menu button at http://www.g8ajn.tv . If you hit a problem or just want to gloat at having instant success please post a message here and one of the experts will respond asap.
Dave G8AJN

[G0NMY]

This looks an ideal option for me to upgrade to digital tv, any idea when the pcb will be made available please?
Thanks Mark G0NMY

[M0ATV]

Yes would like to know the same here, I know on the Digilite site it says final version of board will be released this month (Aug 2011) but would like to know if this will be available ready etched & ready to use with possibly a pack of parts in kit form.