Splashing Complete

Well,

Following my recent post back here about my bonkers SPE 1.3K-FA Amplifier, I thought I should post an update now it's back from its short vacation in Italy.

It has been back to the factory for three issues:

• Front Panel missalignment
• Very noisy fans
• Attenuator fittment

So, I am please to report all three issues are sorted on the amplifier and the drive levels, whilst still somewhat bonkers, are very much more reasonable and within the range that I can actually control from the radio.

Luckily, my main radio (The TS-990) is extremely well thought out, and within the menu system you can set the granularity of the power out adjustment:

So  I can now set the output level exactly as I require on each band.

Here's a quick video of the amplifier now its back:

You can see the automatic band switching working - I have this working on both the Kenwood and my IC-7610 radios - you can also see that 5W drive now gives me 250W and 8W gives me full UK legal limit.

I haven't yet played with the in-line attenuator I made back here, but will do soon.

I've actually used the output from my MicroHam DigiKeyers to drive the CAT control from the rigs, so I can also keep the CAT line into the computer for logging and other control purposes.

All good.