Re: Amplifier Talk- Communications Concepts
I have a complete EB63A that has not been built with a heat sink 165mm x 120mm x 40, 15 fins. Anyone interested let me know. Barry K3BO
On Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 7:31 AM Gordon Gibby < ggibby@...> wrote:
´¡±ô±ô¾±²õ´Ç²Ô¡ª
Can I ask your advice on a boat anchor project?? Soon I will start refurbishing more and more ?HW 100s & SB 100s. ? I read that only fractions of a white are needed to drive a 6146 amplifier (driving the grid).? It¡¯s a very high input impedance. ? We just
learned how to make 1 to 49 baluns easily for End Fed half wave resonant antennas...(fantastic results!)
. would some 1:100 or so ferrite Baluns work well to feed the output of a micro Bitx ?into the final amplifier stage one of these older boat anchor radios??
Gordon KX4Z
On Sep 14, 2019, at 23:48, ajparent1/KB1GMX < kb1gmx@...> wrote:
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Farhan,
Still around and busy.
Check out OZ1PIFs work.? I've run one section of that a 4x4 parallel push pull
on 6M to over 200W.? The yabut is you need 28V power at 15A!? At 12V that
doesn't work well.? The up side is to get that power not much drive is needed
and its easy to over drive it 5-6W was enough.? Its remarkably tough as I
haven't fried it.? The IMD is only OK.? However a really good and heavy built
low pass is needed as the first one with #18 air wound coils heated too much,
#14 wire solved that along with 500V metal clamp mica caps.
A pair of IRF510s can do 40-50w easy at 28V with 1-2W of drive.?
Parallel parts are harder as then you have parallel paths for
RF current to balance.? Cheat on the layout it becomes unstable
or poor power out.? Getting them to as high as 70mhz was not all
that hard if you pay attention to input and output impedance
they must be low for stability and reasonable power.
The 8 IRF510s are cheap but the total system is not cheap as you still
need a big heatsink (130mm by 130mm with 40mm fins? and a? fan) , TR
switching that can handle the power, and a package to put it all in.?
Cheap 28 or 48 volt switching? power supplies are not a solution as
often they are way to noisy on receive.
Things to consider 100W at 12V is about the limit using the right parts.
However the relays now have to be good for at least 5A and 100V
at the output and the input they can be fairly light.? With higher power
higher currents and voltage are the expected thing and parts like
#12 wire, 500V silver mica or ATC 800B are the required parts.
High power (more than 20 or so watts) tends to be expensive and
getting a reliable amp is never trivial task.
Allison
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Re: Amplifier Talk- Communications Concepts
´¡±ô±ô¾±²õ´Ç²Ô¡ª
Can I ask your advice on a boat anchor project? ?Soon I will start refurbishing more and more ?HW 100s & SB 100s. ? I read that only fractions of a white are needed to drive a 6146 amplifier (driving the grid). ?It¡¯s a very high input impedance. ? We just
learned how to make 1 to 49 baluns easily for End Fed half wave resonant antennas...(fantastic results!)
. would some 1:100 or so ferrite Baluns work well to feed the output of a micro Bitx ?into the final amplifier stage one of these older boat anchor radios??
Gordon KX4Z
On Sep 14, 2019, at 23:48, ajparent1/KB1GMX < kb1gmx@...> wrote:
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Show quoted text
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Farhan,
Still around and busy.
Check out OZ1PIFs work.? I've run one section of that a 4x4 parallel push pull
on 6M to over 200W.? The yabut is you need 28V power at 15A!? At 12V that
doesn't work well.? The up side is to get that power not much drive is needed
and its easy to over drive it 5-6W was enough.? Its remarkably tough as I
haven't fried it.? The IMD is only OK.? However a really good and heavy built
low pass is needed as the first one with #18 air wound coils heated too much,
#14 wire solved that along with 500V metal clamp mica caps.
A pair of IRF510s can do 40-50w easy at 28V with 1-2W of drive.?
Parallel parts are harder as then you have parallel paths for
RF current to balance.? Cheat on the layout it becomes unstable
or poor power out.? Getting them to as high as 70mhz was not all
that hard if you pay attention to input and output impedance
they must be low for stability and reasonable power.
The 8 IRF510s are cheap but the total system is not cheap as you still
need a big heatsink (130mm by 130mm with 40mm fins? and a? fan) , TR
switching that can handle the power, and a package to put it all in.?
Cheap 28 or 48 volt switching? power supplies are not a solution as
often they are way to noisy on receive.
Things to consider 100W at 12V is about the limit using the right parts.
However the relays now have to be good for at least 5A and 100V
at the output and the input they can be fairly light.? With higher power
higher currents and voltage are the expected thing and parts like
#12 wire, 500V silver mica or ATC 800B are the required parts.
High power (more than 20 or so watts) tends to be expensive and
getting a reliable amp is never trivial task.
Allison
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Re: Compliance Summary - other radios
The KL203 senses the RF and less than 1w average power is needed. That is why it works as is with a softrock in AM FM and likely in CW. In SSB the average power is far less as in most transceivers unless a mic compressor is used. A simple mod I believe is simply to increase a little bit the picking of RF at the RX input of the KL203. The KL203 uses a 500V 8.2pf at C1. I would add another 8.2pf in parallel at C1. If you use the KL203 with 1w you may use also a non 500V cap, any will work.
Il 12/set/2019 20:14, "Sajid Rahum via Groups.Io" <zs735= [email protected]> ha scritto: Hi Allison, i did get the prebuilt band pass filter from ebay.? Wondering if you have any suggestions to mod the KL-203 as well as how to mod it to be more sensistive to lower power e.g. from softrock <1w; I am able to trigger AM but not via SSB.
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I finally found it. What threw me was that you have to turn on Setup mode, then dial PAST "Exit Menu" to find the select for the key type. Got it working! Thanks, Curt!
73,
Gwen, NG3P
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Re: Amplifier Talk- Communications Concepts
Farhan,
Still around and busy.
Check out OZ1PIFs work.? I've run one section of that a 4x4 parallel push pull
on 6M to over 200W.? The yabut is you need 28V power at 15A!? At 12V that
doesn't work well.? The up side is to get that power not much drive is needed
and its easy to over drive it 5-6W was enough.? Its remarkably tough as I
haven't fried it.? The IMD is only OK.? However a really good and heavy built
low pass is needed as the first one with #18 air wound coils heated too much,
#14 wire solved that along with 500V metal clamp mica caps.
A pair of IRF510s can do 40-50w easy at 28V with 1-2W of drive.?
Parallel parts are harder as then you have parallel paths for
RF current to balance.? Cheat on the layout it becomes unstable
or poor power out.? Getting them to as high as 70mhz was not all
that hard if you pay attention to input and output impedance
they must be low for stability and reasonable power.
The 8 IRF510s are cheap but the total system is not cheap as you still
need a big heatsink (130mm by 130mm with 40mm fins? and a? fan) , TR
switching that can handle the power, and a package to put it all in.?
Cheap 28 or 48 volt switching? power supplies are not a solution as
often they are way to noisy on receive.
Things to consider 100W at 12V is about the limit using the right parts.
However the relays now have to be good for at least 5A and 100V
at the output and the input they can be fairly light.? With higher power
higher currents and voltage are the expected thing and parts like
#12 wire, 500V silver mica or ATC 800B are the required parts.
High power (more than 20 or so watts) tends to be expensive and
getting a reliable amp is never trivial task.
Allison
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Re: Amplifier Talk- Communications Concepts
Allison, Glad to see you pitch in. How has your experience with the paralleled IRF510s been? You managed to push them to 50 Mhz.
On Sun 15 Sep, 2019, 3:43 AM ajparent1/KB1GMX, < kb1gmx@...> wrote: OK, staring from a point of experience...
First serious and decent amps in the 100W and up class even if home built will
cost not less that 2-5$/watt.? There are big metal parts and expensive transistors
in many.
Most of the cheap "70W" ebay amps have not been seen as working, for long.?
They are still in need of box, likely a real heatsink (adequately sized), low pass
filters and plenty of spare Mosfets and some do not work at all wall above 20M.?
Caveat emptor.
I have built many of the EB series of amplifiers and they are good stable designs that?
generally perform to the limits of the devices used.? Comments like "CB amps" are
generally meaningless and better avoided.? I have seen those apnotes applied
to CB and some are junk and a few were well done.? Quality is often a builder
thing rather than application.? All of the amp modules require a Low pass filter(s)?
and will be likely switched with relays or mechanically.
One last thing what you put in had better be good as 10x that will reflect
all of the flaws in you signal and more people will hear them and comment.
if that is not clear, garbage in, means garbage out.
The biggest issue for those amps are the transistors for them are scarce and often?
very expensive.? I built them as I already had the devices and last look MRF454s
are over 100$ a pair for real ones.
EB63, basic simple amp, the down side is the diode current alone will be high
and that establishes the bias.? Efficiency when built right is over 50% however
at 160M or over 10M the design is not optimal, that's hard to do over a decade
of frequency range.? However with a good low pass filter and clean input the
result is excellent but the transistors used are costly and it can be intolerent
[unstable] of random substitutions.?
AN762? is a later design that uses a 723 voltage regulator to do a precision bias?
and that is an improvement.??The deal is its excellent and not a simple build
plus the devices are near extinct, unless treasure is expended.? Most will
choke at the cost of the machined copper heat spreader alone.
An779 20W amplifer for a SSB transceiver, excellent amp with good efficiency
and low IMD? output.
AN593 amplifier for 160W (28V use) and a version for 12V that does about 80W
SSB and its a good design but one has to pay attention to the mechanical details
or cooling suffers and for 12V use the power is limited.? Since it has the driver is
part of the design its not suited for more than a fraction of a watt input.? For the
80w (13.8V) version max power in would be around 125mW.? Both versions when
correctly adjusted offer very good IMD.? I've built the 28V version.
Others built include AN791 using MRF247 for 80W at 2m. and the datasheet? MRF492
circuit with bias for 6M and near 100W output.? MRF140 28V 160W amp for 6M,
MRF174 for 2M at 150W, and?a utv8100B amp for 60W (with 5W FT817 drive) at 432.
For VHF and UHF I've built far more but there I do use more power but at HF?
I tend to build to the 4-5W level and rely on either my 100W radio if more is
needed or one of several amps that include the EB63, Wa2EBY,?and a
design that is similar to the EB63 with active bias.
Allison
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Gwen
Look again, I remember a menu setting in the stock firmware to designate using a paddle. I remember a few have fiddled some with those resistor values. Perhaps also check the entire path resistance,? after finding the setting.
Curt
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Ok, I've replaced the BNC with an SO-239, and that is working a lot better. CW, though, is a problem. I had originally wired it for straight key, but decided to try wiring it for paddles instead. I added the 2.2k and 10k resistors, put them in the line as shown in the schematic, and connected them to the key socket. (I use W0EB's little breakout boards for this. Much easier to get at the thing.) Problem is, I STILL don't have paddle functionality. It's only operating in straight key mode.
I looked through everything, ran through the menus, and didn't find a place to change the hand key/paddle mode -- I gather that's in a different firmware set -- but I thought that it would work automatically once the voltage divider was in place. It's still only working with the sleeve connection for dah. I need to open it BACK up and start chasing things with the ol' multimeter, but if anyone can think of something specific to check, I'd appreciate it.
This is a v3 board, no mods. I hadn't gotten around to modifying anything since I thought I'd blown it up. If I MUST, I can operate it with a straight key, and maybe even a Cootie, but it seems very squirrelly with a Cootie -- noisy, lousy contact, that sort of thing, even right after cleaning the contacts. I hit them with Deoxit regularly and pull a piece of paper through the contacts to take off any corrosion or tarnish.
73,
Gwen, NG3P
Who has to stop fiddling with gear and practice CW more...L2 class on Monday!
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Re: Amplifier Talk- Communications Concepts
OK, staring from a point of experience...
First serious and decent amps in the 100W and up class even if home built will
cost not less that 2-5$/watt.? There are big metal parts and expensive transistors
in many.
Most of the cheap "70W" ebay amps have not been seen as working, for long.?
They are still in need of box, likely a real heatsink (adequately sized), low pass
filters and plenty of spare Mosfets and some do not work at all wall above 20M.?
Caveat emptor.
I have built many of the EB series of amplifiers and they are good stable designs that?
generally perform to the limits of the devices used.? Comments like "CB amps" are
generally meaningless and better avoided.? I have seen those apnotes applied
to CB and some are junk and a few were well done.? Quality is often a builder
thing rather than application.? All of the amp modules require a Low pass filter(s)?
and will be likely switched with relays or mechanically.
One last thing what you put in had better be good as 10x that will reflect
all of the flaws in you signal and more people will hear them and comment.
if that is not clear, garbage in, means garbage out.
The biggest issue for those amps are the transistors for them are scarce and often?
very expensive.? I built them as I already had the devices and last look MRF454s
are over 100$ a pair for real ones.
EB63, basic simple amp, the down side is the diode current alone will be high
and that establishes the bias.? Efficiency when built right is over 50% however
at 160M or over 10M the design is not optimal, that's hard to do over a decade
of frequency range.? However with a good low pass filter and clean input the
result is excellent but the transistors used are costly and it can be intolerent
[unstable] of random substitutions.?
AN762? is a later design that uses a 723 voltage regulator to do a precision bias?
and that is an improvement.??The deal is its excellent and not a simple build
plus the devices are near extinct, unless treasure is expended.? Most will
choke at the cost of the machined copper heat spreader alone.
An779 20W amplifer for a SSB transceiver, excellent amp with good efficiency
and low IMD? output.
AN593 amplifier for 160W (28V use) and a version for 12V that does about 80W
SSB and its a good design but one has to pay attention to the mechanical details
or cooling suffers and for 12V use the power is limited.? Since it has the driver is
part of the design its not suited for more than a fraction of a watt input.? For the
80w (13.8V) version max power in would be around 125mW.? Both versions when
correctly adjusted offer very good IMD.? I've built the 28V version.
Others built include AN791 using MRF247 for 80W at 2m. and the datasheet? MRF492
circuit with bias for 6M and near 100W output.? MRF140 28V 160W amp for 6M,
MRF174 for 2M at 150W, and?a utv8100B amp for 60W (with 5W FT817 drive) at 432.
For VHF and UHF I've built far more but there I do use more power but at HF?
I tend to build to the 4-5W level and rely on either my 100W radio if more is
needed or one of several amps that include the EB63, Wa2EBY,?and a
design that is similar to the EB63 with active bias.
Allison
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Re: Compliance Summary - other radios
Bill
On the Dentron, see if it uses a narrowband matching circuit, although that would also result in output power varying appreciably across the band. If you have a nearby RBN listener as I do, it may let you preceive the 40m harmonic level. My local RBN showed a simultaneous 14 MHz output when I used my hw16 on 15m, that I successfully adjusted. That's a sure problem feeding my triband yagi.
The nice kit being sold by N8DAH nicely addresses ubitx harmonics, last I heard in every tested ubitx by our club. It does not cure ssb upper band spurious on 15, 12 and 10m. (I am skeptical whether arrl lab knew to look for these in v5 testing).
Those single and few band rigs can incorporate narrower filters, making compliance easier.
Curt
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Re: Amplifier Talk- Communications Concepts
I have the other similar amp, AN762, that I got in the late 90's.
I have the amp built up and mounted on a monster heat sink, with a
supporting case ready, and just have to craft filters and
bandswitching. A kit for filters is almost done -
.
As usual, takes a while to finish multiple things....
John K0JD
Milwaukee, WI
On 9/12/2019 21:14, Jeffrey Benedict
wrote:
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I see that there has been a little bit of talk about amplifiers
for ubitx. ?Motorola published amplifier designs which used
their transistors a few years ago and a company named
Communications Concepts packaged many of them into kits with
boards and parts- as much or as little as you want. ?These are
not "kits" as in Elecraft or Heathkits or even ubitx. ?You
really have to be able to go it alone with no one to hold your
hand.
One that might fit the needs of the ubitx user is:
It takes 1-5 watts and makes as much as 140 watts out. ?They
have the parts listed and you can buy everything except things
like cases from them. ?The website is kind of cryptic I think to
keep the "good buddies" from finding and building high power
amps for their See Bees. ?But, poke around and you will find
amps of varying power and type as well as the parts to build
them. ?The Motorola documentation is there also.
eHam has some reviews of amplifiers built with information and
parts from this site.
73
Jeff
--
Jeff, K7AIL ?CN87
raoul@...
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Re: Amplifier Talk- Communications Concepts
Thanks for the feedback. What about the kenwood 440s? What's its reputation?
?
Sent:?Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 12:14 PM
From:?"iz oos" <and2oosiz2@...>
To:[email protected]
Subject:?Re: [BITX20] Amplifier Talk- Communications Concepts
The KL203 is a tabu in the ham community. Don't even think to add in parallel or replace C14 with a 500V 1000pf.
Well Ashar
I plugged KL203 and not bad.? Not the best but works.? I need to mod KL203 to expand the power range; on 20m, it was good no issues.
Sajid
?
?
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Re: Amplifier Talk- Communications Concepts
Asher, the 811A amp that I built when I was a kid used more like 2000 V; ? In the coming year I hope to refurbish it.?
On Sep 13, 2019, at 13:18, Sajid Rahum via Groups.Io < zs735@...> wrote:
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Well Ashar
I plugged KL203 and not bad.? Not the best but works.? I need to mod KL203 to expand the power range; on 20m, it was good no issues.
Sajid
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Re: Amplifier Talk- Communications Concepts
The KL203 is a tabu in the ham community. Don't even think to add in parallel or replace C14 with a 500V 1000pf.
Il 13/set/2019 19:18, "Sajid Rahum via Groups.Io" <zs735= [email protected]> ha scritto: Well Ashar
I plugged KL203 and not bad.? Not the best but works.? I need to mod KL203 to expand the power range; on 20m, it was good no issues.
Sajid
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I¡¯m replacing a bad pl259 connector on my Gap Antenna with a BNC crimp connector and I¡¯m having a problem getting the various coax measurements like how far back to cut the outer jacket, the exposed braid, etc.?
So if anyone can direct me to a good assembly tutorial I would really appreciate it.?
Regards,
?Guy WB7SZI?
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SDR and Ubitx freq not the same.
I have a uBITX V5 with the CEC v1.2 fw and installed a RTL SDR dongle as mentioned on de CEC blog.
Everything works only the RX frequenty on SDR is not the same as on the radio itself.
So RX on SDR console is for example 14.138MHz, when I switch back to the uBITX I have to tune to 14.1395 (which is the actual freq)
Is it possible to adjust that somewhere?
73 Werner pa3gyv
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Like Jerry said, it¡¯s definitely a frees-up of the arduino. I have the same issue when connecting the arduino to my computer (for cat control) and doing things to fast.?
Easiest way for you is to swap the arduino with a fresh firmware.?
73 Werner pa3gyv?
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Thanks all for help! The biggest problem was RF getting back into the radio. The dummy was to close to the radio.?
Have to sort out one more thing, the input for my souncard for digital radio is parallel to the mic. So when the radio is transmitting both pc line out and mic are open. Easiest way is to disconnect the mic but I¡¯m not born easy lol.
73
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Gus,
If the display freezes up that means the Nano has gone off the rails for some reason.
First, make sure that the 5v supply on the Raduino coming out of the LM7805 is?
a good solid 5v when it fails.
Next, I'd try removing the Raduino from the radio, then power up the Raduino by
plugging it into a computer's USB port to feed it 5 volts.
See if it works better that way.
Even though it is not longer connected to the radio, the Raduino's display and encoder?
should work pretty much as they do when it is connected.
If it still doesn't work, then probe the encoder push button with a voltmeter.
You should see around 5v on the wire from the encoder switch into the Raduino
when the button is not pushed, and around 0v when the button is pushed.
Perhaps some other input into the Nano is getting sensed, and the firmware
in the Nano is waiting for it to be released?
Make sure the morse code key is wired up as described in the instructions,
and carefully check all the other wires into the Raduino.
But my best guess is that you have a defective or blown Nano that needs to be replaced.
If you have a Raduino that's only a year or so old, it will have a socketed Nano.
The Nano's are available on the web for about $3.
Not a bad idea to buy more than one, as they are easy to blow.
And easy to find other uses for once you learn a little bit of programming in the the Arduino environment.
If you do this,? be sure to buy one that has the header pins not yet soldered in place:
? ??
To have it fit into the Raduino socket, the pins will have to be installed on the "wrong" side of the nano.
You will also have to program the nano over a USB cable using the Arduino environment
on a host computer with firmware appropriate for the uBitx.
Perhaps others in the forum will have other suggestions for things to try
before you go to the trouble of replacing the Nano.
??
Jerry, KE7ER
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On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 12:22 PM, <gustav316@...> wrote:
My uBitx seems to be working after some prior difficulties (that some of you may recall). When I power on the radio, the VFO (as well as the push function on the VFO knob) seems to function properly for about 10-20 seconds, after which it just freezes and won't operate. Any ideas? Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this.
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My uBitx seems to be working after some prior difficulties (that some of you may recall). When I power on the radio, the VFO (as well as the push function on the VFO knob) seems to function properly for about 10-20 seconds, after which it just freezes and won't operate. Any ideas? Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this.
-Gus
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Gwen Patton
PA3GYV - Werner