I'm having a blast with this thing. I've not done much else this week other than operate on 20m with the QDX I finished on Monday. Built as a low band 12V, I started running at 8V and worked my way up to 12 basically a volt at a time checking the RF power and current draw. Power output seems a bit more than I expected based on the manuals and I seem to be getting out well even with a compromised antenna. Here are some numbers with the QRP Labs dummy load.
19.4V at 12V (est 5.5W from graph)?710mA?current draw
17.9V at 11V (est 5W+ from graph)??665mA?current draw
16.25V at 10V (est 4W from graph)?625mA?current draw
14.6V at 9V (est 3W+ from graph)?580mA?current draw
12.9V at 8V (est 2.5W from graph)?549mA?current draw
I mostly run it at 11V for some extra safety margin on SWR. I've managed to keep the SWR less than 1.2 though. If my SWR was getting high would I expect to see higher current draw? I do see maybe 30mA more with the?antenna than dummy load but it varies +- 15mA or so.
Thanks QRP Labs for a great kit!
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