DATV Equipment Shopping List

This page describes a number of equipment lists that enable a progressive introduction to DATV without necessarily buying everything at once.

1. Domestic Satellite Receiver. Receive only

A domestic satellite receiver (not a Sky box) may receive amateur DATV transmissions in the 23 cm band. You should check that the receiver will accept symbol rates down to 1MS, and you will need to connect a suitable preamp and aerial. Be careful as there will by 13-18V on the satellite tuner's aerial connector. Note that domestic satellite tuners cannot receive RB-TV transmissions with the lower symbol rates of 500KS, 333KS or 125KS.

2. MiniTiouner. Receive only

The MiniTiouner [[1]] is the recommended equipment to receive amateur DATV transmissions. The MiniTiouner connects to a PC, and with suitable aerials and preamps, can receive amateur DATV transmissions at symbol rates from 125KS up to 8MS on the 146, 437, 1255 and 2400 MHz bands. It is only available in partial kit form. The BATC shop https://batc.org.uk/shop/minitiouner sells the following parts:

Serit FTS4334L tuner

MiniTiouner version 2 blank PCB

FT2232H USB module

1 volt regulator

The other parts required can be obtained from RS or Farnell and are listed here [[2]].

3. Portsdown Raspberry Pi Transmit Cross-shack to MiniTiouner ONLY

A Raspberry Pi version 3 computer can be programmed to transmit RB-TV pictures across the shack to a MiniTiouner without any additional hardware. This is known as "Ugly" (or QPSKRF) mode and the spectrum is not clean enough to be amplified or transmitted from an external aerial. Note that the maximum symbol rate is 333KS so this signal cannot be decoded by a domestic satellite receiver; only a MiniTiouner is suitable. This set-up requires

Raspberry Pi 3 Computer and power supply

SD Card (available from BATC Shop https://batc.org.uk/shop/portsdowntc)

MiniTiouner and PC as described in 2 above

4. Portsdown Transmit Cross-shack and local to MiniTiouner or Domestic Sat RX

To transmit DATV signals that can be received on a domestic satellite receiver and are fit for external transmission, a local oscillator and filter-modulator board need to be added. The local oscillator needs to generate about -2 dBm on the desired transmission frequency (between 70 and 2410 MHz); the recommended local oscillator is a synthesizer based on the ADF4351 IC and is available from eBay. The filter-modulator can be bought ready-built from the BATC shop, or the just the PCB can be purchased and the components purchased from DigiKey for home assembly. A GPIO break-out card and header connector makes wiring up the modules a lot easier. This set-up will generate over 2 mW of DATV on the chosen frequency:

Raspberry Pi 3 Computer and power supply

SD Card (available from BATC Shop https://batc.org.uk/shop/portsdowntc)

ADF4351 Local Oscillator (from eBay)

Filter modulator V2 ready built PCB (from BATC Shop https://batc.org.uk/shop/portsdowntc)

GPIO breakout board (from BATC Shop https://batc.org.uk/shop/portsdowntc)