WELCOME TO THE WA8YWO 10 METER BEACON



THE WA8YWO 10 METER BEACON OPERATES ON 28.285 MHZ . THE TRANSMITTER OPERATES WITH 20 MILLIWATTS OUTPUT POWER INTO A SLOPING 1/2 WAVE DIPOLE. GRID SQUARE IS EM-98 . LOCATION IS NEAR RICHWOOD , WEST VIRGINIA . ELEVATION IS 3860 FT msl . ANTENNA IS A SLOPING DIPOLE UP ABOUT 15 FT AT THE CENTER .

"I have always been interested in QRP CW operation , so when I decided to put the Beacon on the air in 1995, there was never a question that it would be anything except Q R P!"

I started by building a keyer circuit using a 2864 EPROM . I programmed the EPROM using 1`s and 0`s. For a dit I used one 1 and for dashes I use three 1`s. I also use 0`s to create spaces between the dits and dahs. I found that three 0`s between the dits and dahs and six between the letters worked out about right. I have been very satisfied with the operation of the keyer. The only down time was when the power surged durning a storm and damaged the voltage regulator and EPROM .I simply replaced the voltage regulator and installed the spare EPROM in the socket and we were back on the air.

The next step was to construct the transmitter circuit . I opted to use a OX oscillator kit from International Crystal that I found in the junk box . I looked a little more and also found one of the matching amplifiers . These are one transistor kits that come with matching coils . Now the entire transmitter consists of a two transistor circuit , a crystal oscillator, and a final amplifier.

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