First light...
After cleaning all the mating surfaces, attaching a pigtail for PowerPole?
connectors (lab standard here) adding a fuse on the rear, and a stout
reverse polarity diode plus heatsink grease I started making basic
checks on current limited supply.?
I powered up to the sbitx software.? After playing some and making
measurements. things noted.
Power measured with BIRD wattmeter 50H slug in use (50W FS),
monitored on station RX and with SA.
Power out and dashboard setting have limited correlation.? When
set to 6W I would see anywhere from 15W (10M) to as much as
45W on 80m.? The other is that it wanted to push far more than
50W at 20M set to 40.? The actual after fetching the 100H slug
was 63W, way over.
Since the apparent power setting is based on drive? there is
considerable variation in power chain gain without any alc or
other direct measure of output.? Meter your output or risk frying
finals. It was very easy to both over drive and run the power
well past 40W into the dummy load.??
If not over driven the SA says its clean.? I haven't checked for spurs
or harmonics yet but it sounds right.?
The other is no audio key down TX 1.5A, I have to check bias
for drivers and finals.? While I had it apart a dab of heastsink
grease was applied to the finals.? Also insure the final are flat
to the heat sink for best cooling.
The touch screen need a longer timer as its very easy to touch
it and go off to odd places.? The screen timout (screen saver)
was a momentary upset before I realized rasipian nominally
has it set on.
This one also has the WIfi Zzzip buzz.? Not a surprise as the Wfi
chip on the RPi is maybe an inch from the audio board.
The upside is while running my main radio (FT8 on 10M) I used?
the Sbitx to decode my tx (not on antenna) and it did.? Good sign.
It will take much more digging into the radio. and like software.
More work ahead.
Allison
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Please use the forum, offline and private will go to bit bucket.
