DK1MI.radio

Cheap and simple fully automatic antenna switching

Preconditions

The HF part of my amateur radio station mostly consists of the following:

Goals of this project

A solution should be found that achieves the following:

In other words: I’d like to fully automatically transmit WSPR packages via the Hustler 4-BTV when I am not using the station. If I am using it, the appropriate antenna for the current band should be selected.

Possible solutions

Multiple possible solutions come into mind:

An alternative approach

Since I only have two antennas and one of them is for the upper parts of the bands while the other one is for the lower parts, the following very simple and affordable solution came into mind:

Automatic switching of the shack antenna switch

The IC-7300’s ACC port provides a 13,8V output pin which is specified to be able to deliver up to 1A. The shack antenna switch is directly connected to this pin and will therefore toggle its state depending on the power state of the IC-7300. The coax cables are connected in a way that the WSPR transmitter is selected when no voltage is applied to the coax switch.

Furthermore the WSPR transmitter needs to be powered off as soon as the IC-7300 has been switched on. For this a simple 12V relay board (~3,50 EUR) will also be connected to the 13,8V output pin of the IC-7300’s ACC port. The WSPR transmitter is powered via a Micro-USB cable from which the red wire will be cut and wired to the relay board so that it is connected to the pins of the relay that are closed when no voltage is applied to the relay. This way the WSPR transmitter will be powered with 5V via an external power adapter when the IC-7300 is powered off and be shut down when the IC-7300 is powered on.

Automatic switching of the remote antenna switch

A cheap battery monitor (~11 EUR) - which are normally used to protect batteries from deep discharge by switching them off when a certain voltage as been reached - will be connected to the BAND pin of the ACC port. One can freely define the cut off voltage in the variant I’ve purchased. Depending on the selected frequency band, a voltage of between 0 and 8 volts is applied to the BAND pin. I’ve configured mine to trigger at a voltage of 4,5V since the value for 20m is 4V and the one for 40m is 5V.

Diagram

The following diagram shows how all the above mentioned components are wired together:

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Pictures

Both PCBs have been mounted on a custom designed and 3D printed adapter board which again has been mounted to the bottom of the enclosure.

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The finished device:

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Parts used

Thank you for reading! If you have any comments or questions, please send me an e-mail.

#3D Printing #Antenna #Ham Radio