Boulder Amateur TV Repeater's Newsletter-107

TV Rptrs Rptr-107.doc (8/1/2022, kh6htv) p.
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Boulder Amateur
Television Club
TV Repeater's
REPEATER
August, 2022
issue #107
BATVC web site: www.kh6htv.com
ATN web site: www.atn-tv.com
Jim Andrews, KH6HTV, editor - [email protected] www.kh6htv.com
Visit to W0BTV
For the first time since covid pandemic
struck, we were finally able to access our
W0BTV - ATV repeater site. Our site host
has been experiencing issues with their own
radio communications system. They
contacted us asking for help in identifying
the numerous antennas, coax cables, etc. on
the site. Also we needed to personally
examine our own hardware.
On Thursday, July 14th, Don, N0YE, and Jim, KH6HTV, made an inspection trip to the
roof-top of the south tower. See above photo. The white vertical antenna on the right
attached to a side-arm at the base of the antenna tower is our receive antenna. It is a
Diamond X-6000 (2m/70cm/23cm). The short white vertical antenna on the left is our
5.905 GHz transmit antenna. It is a 10dBi, horizontally polarized Laird model
OC5150H. The blue box to the right contains the 5.9 GHz FM-TV transmitter. The 423
MHz transmit antenna is much higher up on the tower. It is a DB Products, DB-411.
We share that antenna with BARC's 70cm FM voice repeater. For complete details
about our repeater, see application notes AN-51b & AN-53b. AN-52 is the history of
our Boulder, Colorado ATV repeater. They are available at: www.kh6htv.com
We did find a couple of problems. The mounting bolt of the X-6000 to the de-coupling
sleeve and side-arm bracket was loose. So we tightened it securely. The other issue
discovered was a broken ground strap which connected the coax lightning arrestor to the
main frame of the tower. This arrestor was on the coax cable used for both our receive
TV Rptrs Rptr-107.doc (8/1/2022, kh6htv) p. 2 of 11
antenna and the up-link feed for our 5.9 GHz transmitter. We made a temporary repair
but will need to return later with a new ground strap.
W0BTV - ATV repeater is the free standing Another view of W0BTV

rack on the right.
We also made a brief visit to the radio room on the floor beneath the roof-top. All
appeared to be in order. These photos show the equipment in the room. They include
BARC's 2m & 70cm FM voice repeaters, BCARES' D-Star 2m/70cm/23cm repeaters
along with our host's UHF repeaters. We did find in there several new, heavy duty UPS
AC back-up power supplies. They have been installed to provide short term AC power
for the radio systems during a power failure, before the facility's back up diesel
generators kick in.
DEEP SPACE
EXPLORATION
SOCIETY
The DSES is a group of scientifically
dedicated radio amateurs. They are
primarily based out of Colorado Springs.
They have had the extraordinary luck to be able to obtain a government surplus 60 ft.
dish antenna in remote south-eastern Colorado. The Haswell dish and a similar dish in
Boulder were originally used many years ago (1957-74) by the National Bureau of
Standards ( NBS ), Central Radio Propagation Lab ( CRPL ) in Boulder, Colorado for
tropospheric propagation research.
While the major focus for DSES is amateur radio astronomy, they also use the dish for
other ham radio activities, such as EME. They also have an HF, 6m & 2m station at the
site.
Haswell Boulder
More recently, they have decided to also try their hand at DATV with the dish. Dr.
Richard Russell, AC0UB, has been in contact with Jim, KH6HTV, and has purchased for
DSES a complete 70cm DVB-T transmitter / receiver package. They hope to attach it to
the 60 ft. dish antenna in the near future and aim it towards Boulder to see if they can
access the W0BTV-ATV repeater. The rf path shown above is definitely an over the
horizon path for a distance of about 160 miles. It should be possible. Don, N0YE, in
Boulder says he has heard the Haswell dish on 1296 MHz, SSB in the past. We hope to
report here in this newsletter, success from Haswell in the future.
Want to find out more about DSES ? Check out their web site: http://dses.science/
The GPS coordinates of their dish is: 38.380785 deg N x 103.156534 deg W
They are also hosting an open house on Saturday, August 13th. See their flyer in the
Ham Ads section of this newsletter.
Rebuild Progress - KH6HTV

I am making slow progress in re-establishing my ham radio / TV gear after the fire. Now
back on the air with capability for FM-TV on 5 cm band. The rig consists of the TS832,
600mW transmitter, RC832 receiver, L-Com BBQ grill dish antenna on a camera tripod
and an 11", 12Vdc, 1080P video monitor. (see ATV newsletter, issue #106, p.10 ). The
above photo shows the gear setup on my back deck of the new QTH receiving the 5.905
GHz Beacon signal from W0BTV-ATV repeater. The repeater is at the base of the
mountains seen as silhouettes against the western evening sky. The distance to the
repeater is about 12 miles. The received signal was a solid P4 with full quieting on the
audio. Careful examination of the image reveals a bit of multi-path which is no doubt
reflections off of the Flatiron mountains behind the repeater. I also tried the rubber duck
antenna which was supplied with the TS832/RC832 combo. By searching for a "sweet
spot" I was even able to receive a P3 picture with noisy audio with the rubber duck.
Jim, KH6HTV
Ongoing VK3CH
Amateur Radio / Television
Studio Works
A must read for ATVers out there who are

interested in setting up a real broadcast TV
studio in their ham shack is Mick's on-going
series in the NEVARC News. This month,
he has a 43 page article covering many different topics. They include: cameras
(including webcams & mobile phones ), microphones, fancy titling, green screens, analog
video to digital, digital to analog, vMix (great for using your PC to control & mix many
A/V sources ) including keyboard vs. mouse control & remotely, VLC, (media), Stream-
Deck, etc.
The August edition of NEVARC News is on the club website at https://nevarc.org.au/

A direct link is here https://nevarc.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/NEVARC-
NEWS-Vol-09-Issue-08-2022.pdf
World-Wide ATV QSO Party: Reminder, this annual

event is coming up soon. The overall coordinator is Peter, VK3BFG (
[email protected] ) The USA coordinator is Roland, KC6JPG (
[email protected] ) Hopefully many USA chapters of ATN will be participating . It
will be on the last week-end in August. Start time is Saturday, August 27th at 00:00
UTC (Friday, August 26th at 5:00pm Pacific Daylight Time / 8:00pm Eastern Daylight
time) for the United States.
For the USA, the qso party will start with Art Towslee - WA8RMC for the eastern US,
followed by Bill Eberle - AB0MY, for Boulder / mid US, then Lee Weitzel - K0CCU
representing Arizona, Jim Tittle - K6SOE leading Mt. Diablo, Ben Carlucci -W2NYC
representing the Silicon Valley ATV, and Roland with the six ATV repeaters in SoCal,
and one ATV repeater in Nevada.
The Boulder coordinator is Bill, AB0MY, ( [email protected] ) For more details,

contact your local coordinator.
K8FIX, Bruce Kobie at the DARA clubhouse's shared ATV station console working
on the documentation project
K8FIX Begins Documenting Dayton

Amateur Radio Association
ATV Repeater System Layout
We are in the process of documenting the many additions and changes that have been
made to the DARA ATV System as a result of the last nine years of work that has been
done with the addition of amplifiers, DVB-T receivers and transmitters, new interdigital
filters, and the addition of dual junction tunable isolators. Along with installation of all
of the digital equipment, the isolators have allowed for the use of a single 70cm
transmitter antenna for simultaneous multi-cast of the 421.250 MHz analog TV
transmission and a 2 MHz-wide 428 MHz DVB-T TV transmission. This paired
analog/digital multiplex transmitter configuration is the only TV transmitter
configuration in existence being successfully employed in the amateur radio community.
Bruce volunteered to document the entire repeater system, stem-to-stern, via his expertise
with CAD.
Dave, AH2AR, Dayton, Ohio
USB TV Tuner Dongle for DVB-T
I recently bought a Nooelec NESDR Mini

2+ SDR and DVB-T USB dongle. ( $30 on
Amazon-Prime ) It is supposed to be an
improved version of the RTL-SDR dongles
that many of us are familiar with. It uses a newer tuner (R820T2) and a lower noise
internal power supply. It also has a greater precision oscillator (TCXO) than most have.
The antenna connector is MCX. There are a couple of accessories that come with the
dongle. There is an MCX to SMA adapter and a little antenna with an MCX connector on
it.
It works well, but here’s the catch; Getting the correct driver is tricky. Microsoft does
not have the correct driver. If you do a driver update you will get an old driver from
2010. A Realtek 2832U driver from 2012 is needed for this to work. Rather than trying to
describe the process of getting the correct driver here, I refer the reader to :
http://www.users.on.net/~learoy/Installing%20RTL.pdf
This will give you a link to the correct driver and tell you how to install it.
To see/hear a DVB-T signal I use the program VLC, which is free. (

https://www.videolan.org/vlc/ ) To use it, open VLC, go to “media” along the top
menu bar and go to “open capture device”. From there, find the capture mode pull down
menu and select TV-digital. Be sure DVB-T is selected. Set your frequency in the
“transponder/multiplex frequency” field and pull down the bandwidth menu and select
your bandwidth. Press “Play” and you should soon see your TV signal.
If you want to use the dongle as an SDR for general purpose receiving, go to
start.nesdr.com for details on how to install a different driver to do that. Unfortunately
no one driver allows use both as an SDR and a DVB-T receiver.
I am happy with this so far, but I haven’t used it to receive off the air yet, just across the
room from a DVB-T transmitter.
Pete, WB2DVS, Boulder, Colorado
News from San Diego, California

We now have two FCC licensed LPTV | ATSC 3.0 stations on air in Ramona and
Oceanside with Amateur Radio / TV programming as part of our Science and
Technology Series.
73 de Mario, Kd6ILO
Feed-Back on Analog ATV: Dave, AH2AR, says don't give up

hope on finding old, NTSC, analog ATV gear. He recently did a search on E-Bay and
found these "hits".
Feed-Back on W1GHZ RFI: Excellent article by Paul, thanks for

sharing it. This might be one of those times when I won't say bad things about the big hill
between me and the TV transmitters north of me.
Thanks again Mike, KA5TDA, Moore, Oklahoma
Hi Jim --- Interesting articles from Paul in your latest newsletter. I have met him
several time at conferences and he always has inspiring talks and interesting projects.
73 de Mel, K0PFX, St. Louis, Missouri
Feed-Back: Hi Jim --- Many thanks for your newsletter. As everyone else I
am getting showered by newsletters from all the RF magazines, IEEE and HAMs.
However, for most of them I just skip over the subject line, some I will scan more
thoroughly over the next days, but yours is only one I open immediately when I get it! I
am not an ATV person, but it is always good and provoking other thoughts for my work
and HAM stuff.
Thanks & 73, Greg, ZL1GSG,
2 vs. 6 MHz BW Teaser: In our next issue (#108), look for an article on
"What Are the Differences in Receiver Sensitivity for 2, 4 & 6 MHz Band-Width
DVB-T Signals ?"
W0BTV Details: Inputs: 439.25 MHz, analog NTSC, VUSB-TV;

441MHz/6MHz BW, DVB-T & 1243 MHz/6MHz BW, DVB-T
Outputs: Channel 57 --- 423 MHz/6MHz BW, DVB-T, or optional 421.25 MHz,
analog VUSB-TV. Also, secondary transmitter, FM-TV output on 5.905 GHz (24/7).
Operational details in AN-51a Technical details in AN-53a. Available at:
https://kh6htv.com/application-notes/
W0BTV ATV Net: We hold a social ATV net on Thursday afternoon at 3

pm local Mountain time (22:00 UTC). The net typically runs for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. A
DVD ham travelogue is usually played for about one hour before and 1/2 hour after the
formal net. ATV nets are streamed live using the British Amateur TV Club's server, via:
https://batc.org.uk/live/kh6htvtvr or n0ye or ab0my. We use the Boulder ARES
(BCARES) 2 meter FM voice repeater for intercom. 146.760 MHz ( -600 kHz, 100 Hz
PL tone required to access).
Newsletter Details: This is a free newsletter distributed

electronically via e-mail to ATV hams. The distribution list has now grown to about 500.
News and articles from other ATV groups are welcomed. Permission is granted to re-
distribute it and also to re-print articles, as long as you acknowledge the source. All
past issues are archived at: https://kh6htv.com/newsletter/
ATV HAM ADS

Free advertising space is offered here to ATV hams,
ham clubs or ARES groups. List here amateur radio &
TV gear For Sale - or - Want to Buy.
FOR SALE -- DCI FILTERS
I have two DCI, VSB-TV, channel filters

available for sale. They are tuned to 439.25
MHz and 421.25 MHz. In good working
shape. Interested ? Reply to me with any
offers. [email protected]
Bill, N0MNB, Blaine, MN


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TV Rptrs Rptr-107.doc (8/1/2022, kh6htv) p.

Jim Andrews, KH6HTV, editor - [email protected] www.kh6htv.com

W0BTV - ATV repeater is the free standing Another view of W0BTV

Rebuild Progress - KH6HTV

A must read for ATVers out there who are

The August edition of NEVARC News is on the club website at https://nevarc.org.au/

World-Wide ATV QSO Party: Reminder, this annual

The Boulder coordinator is Bill, AB0MY, ( [email protected] ) For more details,

K8FIX Begins Documenting Dayton

USB TV Tuner Dongle for DVB-T

I recently bought a Nooelec NESDR Mini

To see/hear a DVB-T signal I use the program VLC, which is free. (

News from San Diego, California

Feed-Back on Analog ATV: Dave, AH2AR, says don't give up

Feed-Back on W1GHZ RFI: Excellent article by Paul, thanks for

W0BTV Details: Inputs: 439.25 MHz, analog NTSC, VUSB-TV;

W0BTV ATV Net: We hold a social ATV net on Thursday afternoon at 3

Newsletter Details: This is a free newsletter distributed

ATV HAM ADS

FOR SALE -- DCI FILTERS

I have two DCI, VSB-TV, channel filters

Bill, N0MNB, Blaine, MN

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