"ATV meeting Ruhrgebiet" with Digital-ATV topic
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On the first of April 2000 about 40 amateur television enthusiasts
met in the "Albert-Schweitzer-Schule" in Gladbeck (Northrhein-Westphalia)
at the club station DL0GL of L03, invited by the DARC district Ruhrgebiet.
Peter, DL9EH, the special modes expert, presented as usual.

Attraction of the day was digital ATV reception "live" from the repeater
DB0CD in Gelsenkirchen (about 8 km away). A 30 MB file with MPEG1 data
containing computer animations, photographs of the DATV equipment and 
sound commentary was received and stored in the PC harddisc, then played
back by Windows mediaplayer on the PC monitor.

The "father" of the Digital-ATV development in Wuppertal, Prof. Uwe Kraus,
DJ8DW, from the "Bergische Universitaet" explained the latest facts showing
overhead foils in english originally planned for the ARISS meeting in
Nordwijk/NL (6 MB PDF file: www.darc.de/distrikte/g/datv/ariss.pdf).
In the future also OFDM modulation will be an option with higher picture
quality claims besides the GMSK now in use. A PAL/MPEG2 converter and 
modulator for really live camera views is in the making, and a remodulator
on DVB standard rf signals will enable the usage of any digital satellite 
TV receiver behind the 70 cm DATV RX and close the live TX-RX chain.
DJ8DW showed some concern about the missing mention of a Digital-ATV 
section 433-435 MHz in the proposed IARU region 1 bandplan for 70 cm.

The four district DATV groups active since december 1999 in Koeln-Aachen, 
Nordrhein, Ruhrgebiet and Westfalen-Sued reported about first experiences
with the test units from Wuppertal. Most activity is coming from DB0CD
with nearly daily test transmissions on 434 MHz in GMSK. At the Ham Radio
meeting in Friedrichshafen there will be shown a demonstration link 
between the booths of "DARC-Distrikte" and the "AGAF e.V." in order to
prove practically what Prof. Hermann Gebhard, DF2DS, will explain in a
DATV lecture held on Friday morning in the Friedrichshafen fair building.

Alfred Reichel, DF1QM, the district chairman Ruhrgebiet, thanked the active 
OM for all the effort until now, above all Volker, DJ1CU, who developed 
smaller printed circuits for the DATV units which could be easier in 
duplicating. But it will last some time until complete sets can be 
ordered because of problems with the availability of some special IC.

Klaus, DL4KCK

DATV-Homepage http://www.darc.de/distrikte/g/datv/datvindex.html