Tracker Scout

V

VK3ZYZ

Guest
Last Wednesday for the HF sked, I was hoping to get the Tracker Scout up and running.
It almost worked! But the transmitter is playing up. It would just send a burst of signal then stop. I thought it may be the 12V power supply overloading, and that may still be the problem, but when I put it onto the bigger 13.8V supply, it did not like it.
The receiver behaved very well.

TS_Front.jpg
I will be changing the display to a 2x16 LCD, not the OLED that is mounted.

TrackerScoutMainBoard.jpg
There are 8 channels of coil sets on the board, but I will need to remove then to rewinding for other bands,
At the moment, they are 2.020Mhz, 4.010Mhz that was tuned to 3.630Mhz, 4.055Mhz, 5.300Mhz, 5.41Mhz, 7.97Mhz and 8.165Mhz.
I should be able to tune 160M, 80M, 60M, 40M and 30M bands with the coils there, but 20M may be too far.
And I do not know how high the transmitter will go.
As it is a single conversion radio, higher frequencies may be a problem anyway.


The original oscillators are all on a plug in board so that makes the mod an easy one.
TS_OriginalOscs.jpg
Included is the 1.650Mhz crystal as well as the channel ones.

TS_Synth.jpg
This in the Arduino proto version.


TS_ControlBoard.jpg
And a view of the main control board.

If folks are interested, I'll post a circuit of the mod as well as the Arduino code.
 
V

VK3ZNA

Guest
Last Wednesday for the HF sked, I was hoping to get the Tracker Scout up and running.
It almost worked! But the transmitter is playing up. It would just send a burst of signal then stop. I thought it may be the 12V power supply overloading, and that may still be the problem, but when I put it onto the bigger 13.8V supply, it did not like it.
The receiver behaved very well.

View attachment 575
I will be changing the display to a 2x16 LCD, not the OLED that is mounted.

View attachment 576
There are 8 channels of coil sets on the board, but I will need to remove then to rewinding for other bands,
At the moment, they are 2.020Mhz, 4.010Mhz that was tuned to 3.630Mhz, 4.055Mhz, 5.300Mhz, 5.41Mhz, 7.97Mhz and 8.165Mhz.
I should be able to tune 160M, 80M, 60M, 40M and 30M bands with the coils there, but 20M may be too far.
And I do not know how high the transmitter will go.
As it is a single conversion radio, higher frequencies may be a problem anyway.


The original oscillators are all on a plug in board so that makes the mod an easy one.
View attachment 581
Included is the 1.650Mhz crystal as well as the channel ones.

View attachment 580
This in the Arduino proto version.


View attachment 577
And a view of the main control board.

If folks are interested, I'll post a circuit of the mod as well as the Arduino code.
Hi Denys,
The Tracker 'Scout" and the previous Traeger model had a frequency range of 2 to 16 MHz. So 20M is well within the scope of the transceiver.
Regards
Geoff
 

VK3ZYZ

Moderator
Staff member
Here is my circuit for a proposed PCB to use in the Tracker Scout radio.
TrackerScout_VFO.jpg


As I now have 3 radios to mod, a PCB is sounding like a good idea.
 

VK3ZYZ

Moderator
Staff member
TrackerScoutTest1.jpg

This is one of the sets from Jim running with my proto synth.
These couple of sets that Jim picked up have the RF coils on sub boards so they are fairly easy to remove to change the caps to suit the frequ in use. At the moment, 100pF caps are there but should be 68pF. But, with the slugs wound out pretty well, the coils almost work well enough.
TrackerScoutRF.jpg

I will try for better pics later.

EDIT: Here is a better picture of the filter boards.

RF_Filter.png

Tomorrow more caps will be sourced so the boards can be tuned correctly.

Here is the code I'm using at the moment.
The chan 2 frequency range is expanded to allow me to peak the coils bit by bit from the original 3.1760Mhz, but will be changed later for the ham bands only.
 

Attachments

Last edited:

VK3ZYZ

Moderator
Staff member
This is a close up of the synth.
20211110_213244.jpg


And showing it mounted.
20211110_213313.jpg

The board with the EPROM is the selcall I think. It will be removed.

20211110_213334.jpg

The RF filters and PA.
The PA filter cover is missing so some tinplate will be cut up...
 

Vk2jkn

New member
Last Wednesday for the HF sked, I was hoping to get the Tracker Scout up and running.
It almost worked! But the transmitter is playing up. It would just send a burst of signal then stop. I thought it may be the 12V power supply overloading, and that may still be the problem, but when I put it onto the bigger 13.8V supply, it did not like it.
The receiver behaved very well.

View attachment 575
I will be changing the display to a 2x16 LCD, not the OLED that is mounted.

View attachment 576
There are 8 channels of coil sets on the board, but I will need to remove then to rewinding for other bands,
At the moment, they are 2.020Mhz, 4.010Mhz that was tuned to 3.630Mhz, 4.055Mhz, 5.300Mhz, 5.41Mhz, 7.97Mhz and 8.165Mhz.
I should be able to tune 160M, 80M, 60M, 40M and 30M bands with the coils there, but 20M may be too far.
And I do not know how high the transmitter will go.
As it is a single conversion radio, higher frequencies may be a problem anyway.


The original oscillators are all on a plug in board so that makes the mod an easy one.
View attachment 581
Included is the 1.650Mhz crystal as well as the channel ones.

View attachment 580
This in the Arduino proto version.


View attachment 577
And a view of the main control board.

If folks are interested, I'll post a circuit of the mod as well as the Arduino code.
Hi denys I knew you would have a look but to get the dead one back life WOW , in my one not worried about 15m or 20m so don’t stress there I’ll be happy with 80m mate , making great progress!!
 

VK3ZYZ

Moderator
Staff member
Hi denys I knew you would have a look but to get the dead one back life WOW , in my one not worried about 15m or 20m so don’t stress there I’ll be happy with 80m mate , making great progress!!
Hi Jim.
There is no problem in putting bands up to 14Mhz in the set.
 

VK3ZYZ

Moderator
Staff member
I have updated the proposed circuit for the VFO as below...
TrackerScoutSynth20211112.png

This more reflects the real circuit of the Veroboard prototype, minus the filters.
 

VK3ZYZ

Moderator
Staff member
And some more changes, to suit the proposed PCB.
TrackerScout_VFO.png


TrackerScoutSynth2ViewTop.png


There are probably errors, but we will see.
And, the spare proto areas may come in handy.
I decided to not use surface mount parts as some folk are scared off by them, so this should be easy for anyone else to make if they so desire.
 

BillC

Active member
Hi Denys, nice looking board and front panel, looks like hours of work have gone into those. The Tracker looks to be a neat unit, I have not seen one before. I am hoping to start work on an experimental 'locked oscillator synchronous am detector' soon. I am collecting a few parts and winding and testing transformers at this stage.
 

VK3ZYZ

Moderator
Staff member
TrackerVFO3.JPG


TrackerVFO1.JPG

Here it is assembled. There are a couple inductors missing as I bought the wrong values.

But, true to form, I let the smoke out!
There should have been current limiting resistors in the diode switching.

TrackerVFO2.JPG

The filters are not really working well as the required values were not available, so I will look at calculating them again with values I can get easily.
I'm not sure they are actually switching anyway.
 
Last edited:

BillC

Active member
Hi Denys, I see on your filter circuit that the resonating inductors carry the diode switching currents in the usual way. I wonder if the diode switching current exceeds the current carrying ability of those mini choke inductors? I have had some of those burn out in the past, just an idea, I am sure you would have allowed for that. Watching with interest cheers.
 

BillC

Active member
Hi Denys, The mini rf inductors seem to have quite a good Q I tested one on my ADVANCE Q meter, 220uh,65pf,3.6,MHZ, Q250, not too bad. I have tested other values of those chokes none below Q 200 some around Q 350 with various values of capacitance and various resonant frequency's etc.
 

VK3ZYZ

Moderator
Staff member
I will have to set up to sweep the filters to see how they work as the values are not correct due to limited availability.
So, for now, I've linked them out.
This is my first filter design and I may have mucked it up.
 

VK3ZYZ

Moderator
Staff member
Here is a circuit that should be easier to read.
Note, the 1mH band switching feed inductors have been replaced with 4K7 resistors.
And the optos are PC815 Darlington ones.
TrackerScoutVFO20211208.png
 
Last edited:

VK3ZYZ

Moderator
Staff member
Photo on 8-12-2021 at 8.04 PM.jpg

It is working on a couple of bands :)
There is still more to do to tune it fully, but I'll try it on the club net tonight.
It works :)
And here is the latest code.
 

Attachments

Last edited:
Top