[VHFcontesting] What separates a decent transverter from an awesome transverter?

[Kevin Hobbs]

I think one needs to look at the bigger picture ... the transverter is less
important than getting the entire system right. Often the transverter is
located many dB of coax away in the shack where signals are already lost.
Many people then add a preamp closer to the antenna that overdrives the
front end of the transverter ... it took me years of experimenting with
preamps, cavity input preamps, filters, cable loss, transverters etc before
I found what played together nicely for me for weak signal / EME work in
city locations with large in and out of band signals complicating matters.

These days it costs little $ to input a rock solid frequency reference, and
with a good external preamp (and possibly filter), the transverter itself
becomes a far less critical component in the system ... IMHO

73 Kevin VE3KH


-----Original Message-----
From: VHFcontesting <vhfcontesting-bounces at contesting.com> On Behalf Of Sean
Waite
Sent: April 24, 2018 11:56 PM
To: Patrick Thomas <p-thomas at mindspring.com>
Cc: VHF Contesting <vhfcontesting at contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] What separates a decent transverter from an
awesome transverter?

I enjoy some of the features on the SG Lab transverters. You can set jumpers
to switch the LO, and output in a different part of the band (moving from
the sideband portion of 33cm to the FM portion, for instance).
It's easy to get either dedicated RX port or a split TX/RX port. 10MHz ref
is optional but as a dedicated port. Can be switched via RF or PTT (this is
debatable, since you're hot switching relays in this case I think).

The DEMI 3cm transverter I have has a nice relay feature, you can hook up a
24VDC relay as a T/R relay and drive the transverter with 12VDC, it'll fire
a cap to give the relay enough juice to switch even with only 12V in.

73,
Sean WA1TE

On Tue, Apr 24, 2018 at 10:31 PM Patrick Thomas <p-thomas at mindspring.com>
wrote:

> Hey all,
>
> Subject more or less says it all... I guess better sensitivity, lower 
> noise, better selectivity, and better linearity are the essentials in 
> vague and relative terms, but what attributes do you look for in a 
> REALLY GOOD transverter?
>
> Or for those who have gone further into making them... what 
> components, construction techniques, etc., make a difference?
>
> Partly this is a question I hear a lot and only have a vague notion of 
> how to answer other than "obviously the expensive ones are better...
somehow."
> :)
>
> And partly it is a request for topics for self-guided 
> study/experimentation as I attempt my own homebrew projects.
>
> Many thanks,
>
> Patrick - KB8DGC
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