Completing 23cm

Well,

You may recall last time, I was changing my portable setup for 23cm. Well, on my travels I found a Kuhne Electronic PA for 23cm and have installed it in the waterproof enclosure with the rest of the gubbins:

I have a 14dB attenuator between the transverter TX output and the PA input. Thats a bit bigger than I need, but I don't have anything else suitable at the moment. The G4BAO amplifier that I now have here (thanks John) is going to get utilised as a DATV amp (I think).

I've been fiddling with a cheap Chinese board with a variable attenuator on-board. You can control this using the DIP switches on board or by software. I've written a very simple bit of Arduino code and interfaced an Arduino Nano to the board using serial comms:

This allows me to step through from 0-30dB attenuation in 0.5dB steps. Really quite neat for just under £12 GBP delivered from the far east! I may decide to use this to get the transverter to PA attenuation exactly on the money - let's see.

I'd like to introduce you to the best and most useful screwdriver in my possession:

This belonged to my Father who sadly passed away just over 31 years ago:

I'm often heard muttering to myself "now where's Dad's screwdriver". If it's of interest Dad, I still use it regularly!

Local conditions.

23cm Portable

Well,

Following my changes to the 3cm and 13cm setup to become more portable, I decided it was only fitting to re-make the 23cm setup I made back here. I'll reuse the PA and the transverter.

The first stage in this project will be to create a new sequencer, much like the 13cm version, so we can switch the transverter, a VLNA and a co-ax relay.

Here's the design:

and in reality, this looks like this once built on stripboard:

I've already got a G4DDK VLNA for 23cm assembled here, and coax relays aplenty. John, G4BAO is just tweeking my 23cm 60W PA and once I have all the bits, we can mount them in another waterproof enclosure the same as the 3cm and 13cm setups.


As part of the sequencer design, I finalised my latching relay driver circuit and have finished up with this, included in the sequencer diagram above:

So this is what I have so far:

You can see the SG Labs transverter, the sequencer from above, the VLNA and the TX/RX switching - just the PA to be added.

I've tested one of my attenuators to get an exact value at 1296.2 MHz using zero span on my Spectrum Analyser Tracking Generator as a signal generator and concluded a value of 29 dB (its rated as 30dB).

So then I used this in line to my XL Microwave power meter to measure the output:

And in CW with key down on the FT-817 and 5W output, that reads 6.1dBm so we then add the 29 dB for the atenuator and I get 35.1 dBm which is about 3.25 Watts out of the transverter. It's only supposed to output a nominal 2W and 2.5W max - so I'm not too sure whats going on here.

I've set up the transverter to work with full bananas out from the FT-817 whilst on DC power, and the LEDs that indicate input power levels and output SWR are both shining green:

Here's a crazy cat of mine en route to a portable operation:

#GHZbands

The SWR tripping issue

Well,

You may recall that back here I was starting to construct the SWR trip mechanism for the 23cm linear I built back here.  I've finished this and tested it today; as soon as the RF level on the reflected port reaches 10.8dBW my amplifier trips.

It looks like this in reality:

The return loss bridge is connected to the ANT socket of the linear and the forward and reflected ports are connected back to the amp box with SMA leads. Inside the box is the RF detector board that converts the RF into a -ve voltage and that has been adjusted in accordance with the calculations I did back here. So assuming the maths was correct I the linear will now trip if the SWR exceeds 1.8:1.

I also note there is good propagation on 2M today; looking out the window I see slightly misty but very still weather, often a sign on tropo:

The situation with Chopsey (AKA Git Bastard Cat from Hell) using my desk as his bed is now completely out of hand:

Florrie the ham cat has also taken to sleeping terribly close to my nixie clock which I am very fearful for:

Local conditions.

Tripping over SWR

Well,

I've been thinking some more about the linear for 23cm I started back here, and more importantly how I can generate a high SWR trip signal for the control board.

I have one of these directional couplers:

It has a forward and reflected port at -30dB. Then I remembered I had one of these kits, which built looks like this:

This will turn the sampled RF into a -ve DC voltage for the SWR trip on the control board.

Now, fortunately or unfortunately we now need to do some maths to determine the attenuation needed. The RF detector board contains two samplers, I have configured one for the forward power and one for the reflected.

So, starting with the forward port:

Assuming a maximum output from the linear of 150W, we can convert that to dBW using:

So my 150W RF becomes 21.8 dBW. Therefore the maximum power at the forward port of the directional coupler is 21.8 - 30 = -8.24 dBW.

Given that the maximum input power to the detector part of the board needs to be 3mW or 0.003 W we can also calculate that 3mW = -25 dBW.

Therefore I need an attenuation of the difference which is roughly 16dB.

Then assuming a trip level of 1.8:1 (or about 10dB return loss) the reflected levels need to be 10dB down from the forward so an attenuator of 6dB is needed on the reflected port.

Using my signal generator at 1,000 MHz (1 GHz) and adjusting the output we find this is the response of the board:

So it all looks pretty good.

I now need to do some reading up on how I can drive the trip alarms on the control board, but this should do the trick nicely.

Here's the dogs doing what dogs do:

Local conditions.

Wow - It's working then?

Well,

A couple of updates for you.

Firstly I ordered a 13cm 44 ele antenna, which duly arrived:

I suspect this one is designed for beaming round corner:

Not very clever!

Secondly, I was looking at my 6M logs recently and decided to create a map of my 6M contacts:

I just need that elusive USA opening!

Here's the 23cm amplifier I mentioned back here. It's finished now - I tried it on the air last night in the UKAC and received some good reports:

It's even wired quite neatly inside:

Cabinet feet and everything:

I'm really quite pleased with this. Local conditions.

More 23cm Power Required!

Well,

The other night, there were a few of us trying out JT65C on 23cm. I could decode quite a few of the other stations but couldn't be heard. This is no surprise as I was using only 10W out of my IC-9100.

Quite a while ago I bought a 23cm PA module from PE1RKI - now this is a fairly serious bit of kit that I hadn't got round to doing anything with - until today.

I also bought a number of other items to go with the PA including a case, a switch mode PSU and a Ultimate Amplifier Control Board from W1PQL.

I built the control board and here it is just being attached to the rear panel of the amplifier case:

So the first thing in this kit board is a sequencer to handle all the different things we need to switch as part of going from TX ro RX and back again in a linear amp.

There's an ALC output -ve voltage to keep RF at nil from the driving radio, until such time as all the relays have gone clunk. Once that's happened the -ve voltage is removed and the RF allowed to flow.

Secondly there's a sequencer to drive the TX and RX co-ax relays plus turn on the main DC supply to the PA and it's bias. I have taken the advice from W1PQL and switched both the main DC supply and the bias off during RX. The main DC supply is switched by an external FET switch and the bias by an external relay as the current requirements of this amp are too high for the board to switch alone.

Here;s the SMPS I am using or the amp; it delivers 28V (it's a 24V unit with a pot adjustment) plus a separate 12V output. I can't remember the current rating but this amp needs 11 Amps at 28V so there should be more than enough here.

In the image below you can see the bulkhead N-Type connectors for the outside world, the control board, the external FET switch and the N-Type relay on the amp output. There's an SMA relay on the input which you can just see the side of on the far left of the picture. The second image shows the SMA relay much clearer.

Here's a close up of the innards of the amp itself:

Now, the control board would also control a fan based on a thermistor input - however I'm just wiring the fan on permanently in this build. It would also take a feed from a directional coupler and switch the amp off in the event of high SWR on the output - a most excellent idea - however, I don't have a directional coupler that will work at these frequencies so I guess we are going to risk it....

Chopsey AKA Bastard Cat from Hell hasn't helped much today:

Local conditions.