I was always interested in VHF and UHF operations and have had my share of fun working contests and experimenting with various pieces of equipment but the higher microwave bands kept calling. It turned out that I went ahead and purchased the 10 GHz transverter by Downeast Microwave. We worked many stations using only 200 milliwatts into a 18 inch dish while on a mountain top in West Virginia. Later I got the DB6NT transverter driving a 3 watt amplifier and was able to actually work some rain scatter after making schedules. The problem with these transverters is frequency accuracy and stability since the crystal oscillator is multiplied many times. The thermal resistors hugging the crystal helped somewhat but needed to be "right on" to work others who also were right on frequency. Discovered a site JWM Engineering who sell special oscillators just for these transverters. Before we could use the new oscillators which with slight modifications replaced the original oscillator chain, a good 10 MHz reference had to be found. E-Bay came to the rescue with someone selling surplus units used to lock cell phone sites on frequency and time. It is the HP Z3801A GPS controlled oscillator using a simple GPS antenna. Here is all the information needed for the Z3801A K8CU Z3801A Information It isn't very portable since it requires 48 volts but by using 4 lawnmower batteries in the rear of my pickup, it could be done. Once the Z3801A was locked in to enough satellites on the bench to stabilize it's 10 MHz oscillator, it could then be transported to the field. My first contact was with a station 300 miles away in Virginia while I was in southern Pennsylvania on a hilltop. Since he was also using a locked reference, we made a schedule on 10.368500 MHz for the next day from nearby my home in Maryland. We were so close in frequency that it was unecessary to adjust the I.F. radios frequency. I have since actually worked PSK31 many times with a station 20 miles away on 10.368500 Mhz. The newer JWM oscillators have even less phase noise than their original units and one of them is setup on my workbench now as a beacon on 1296.800000 Mhz. Flex Radio recently announced they are coming out with 144/432 20 watt transverters which will mount inside the existing 5000A. My Flex 5000A is already referenced using 10 MHz which the new transverters will also use. Extreme frequency accuracy will allow moonbounce, meteor scatter and digital modes using lower power and smaller antenna arrays.