April 1st, 2019
As soon, as the narrow band transponder was opened in February, I had my first QSOs via QO-100. Using an MKU LNC 10 in a 80 cm offset dish and my 3 m mesh dish for transmitting, made the first steps very (too) easy.
![](https://i1.wp.com/www.dj5ar.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/DSC_7423a-1.jpg?fit=625%2C937)
In the meantime I mentioned, some hams from the Netherlands, experimenting with ADALM-Pluto SDRs, had very good results. So I got one too and was amazed of variety of possibilities it offers. So I heard my first beacon on 9 cm and it was easy to produce a signal on 13 cm. Recently I got two broadband LNAs (I will call them “A” and “B”) from China and was curious to see how these can be used as power amplifiers too.
Power Source | Power in mW |
---|---|
Pluto | 3 |
Pluto + LNA "A" | 22 |
Pluto + LNA "B" | 30 |
Pluto +LNA "A" + LNA "B" | 120 |
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.dj5ar.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/2019-04-01-QO-100-120-mW.png?fit=625%2C665)
After some power measuring I connected the stuff to a W2IMU feedhorn, mounted on a tripod. No problem at all to find my signal on the NB transponder of QO-100. The estimated EIRP is about 2.4 W and results in a signalstrength of 12 dB.
Addendum: April 10th, 2019
3 mW are enough!
![](http://www.dj5ar.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/56631984_1260866187402260_467482330898890752_n.jpg)
At least I mounted a DJ7GP patch feed with the bare naked Pluto in the focus of my 3 m mesh dish. the 3 mW were enough to produce a solid signal on the NB transponder. In this case I have 6 W EIRP to get 16 dB signal.