K9OQ Antennas

This was a great antenna switching system that was computer controlled. I don't need it at my new site since I us only the FTdx9000d for VHF. But it worked great espeically for my remote operation. .I thought I would leave it here in case anyone might be interested in duplicating this system.

The antenna switching matrix is located in the basement. Seven antenna relay switches allow for at this time switching three antennas to four transceivers. This will soon be expand to five transceivers and four antennas. Each antenna and each transceiver must have a relay switch which is wired into a matrix configuration in order to have complete flexibility . The relays shown to the right are controlled via a serial cable to the network of computer in the ham room. Any one of five computers that control indivi8dual transcievers can control the matrix.

Using a serial control relay system from controlanyting.com , the relays are controlled from the computer in the ham room. As you can see on the software screen to the left, the radios are listed on the left hand side and the antennas are buttons to the right of each radio. By depressing one of the matrix buttons, that antenna is selected for that radio. If the antenna is in use by another radio, there is an error message to disconnect the other radio before trying to connect to that radio. When the button is depressed both the radio switch and the antenna switch is activated to produce the desired connection. For example if the 9000 is to be connected to the TH 11 then the button that lines up with both the 9000 and the TH11 is depressed. That causes the TH11 antenna switch to move to the 9000 and the 9000 antenna switch to move to the TH11. The reset switch is used to reset that radio and the clear all switch is used to clear all radios and antennas.

Because the 9000 and VL 1000 have four antenna ports with automatic antenna selection, there is no switch for the 9000. Instead, I use the 9000's switch for that purpose. I have also written the software so that a different antenna can be connected to each of the 9000's four ports. In that way when I am operating the 9000 I can allow it to automatically select the antenna. I do have a dummy load in the basement that can be switched on any of the radios via this system.

I will be adding two more antennas to the system that will require the addition of antenna switches as well as controller cards. As you can see the controller card can be ganged up to 32 banks of relays.

I will also be updating the software at that time to change the call sign from my old KE0PV to the new K9OQ.

TH 11 DX

I moved the TH11 DX and the 55 foot crank up tower from my lake home to my new home in Davenport Iowa. I am debating whether to re-install the satellite antennas. This picture is of the antennas at my lake home. There is a 2 meter antenna on the top of the tower.