As I mentioned previously, the receive capability in my 50-MHz transverter seemed to be a little bit anemic.  So, I decided to add a little bit of gain.  Looking at the block diagram for the transverter (shown below in updated form—jumper across the SGA-4586Z to understand what the circuit looked like initially—by the way, full-sized PDF versions of all of my notes and schematics will eventually be available here), I reasoned that I had the following losses and gains:  +10 dB for the LNA (this might be as much as +15 dB, but 10 seems more realistic, if not generous), -3 dB for the bandpass filter, -7 dB for the mixer conversion loss, and -3 dB in the diplexer, leaving me with -3 dB overall conversion gain.

So, I endeavored to find some more gain in the form of a MMIC (which is really what all gain blocks in this transverter would be if I were to do it again).  I have a nice (but dwindling) supply of SGA-4586Z’s that produce about 20 dB gain with a 1-dB compression point around 16 dBm, which is probably a good part for this location.  The idea is to overcome the losses in following stages with robust gain in earlier stages (in order to keep system NF low).  So, I ripped out the existing two-pole BPF and replaced it with this:

I was relatively satisfied that I had everything working with the cover of the transverter off to peak the BPF on the W3APL beacon.  So, I replaced the cover and surprise!  To borrow a poetic description of RF circuit doom from N3UM, the MMIC “amplifier burst into song.”  Bursting into song is a bit of a charitable description for something that sounded more  like S9 power line noise in the IF receiver.  I did not actually know that it was the MMIC oscillating at first, but I started wiggling cables and finally found that if I touched the 12RX (+13.8 volts on RX) line, the problem disappeared.  So, I added the 0.01-uF bypass capacitor to ground on the supply side of 180-ohm bias resistor and the problem was solved.

With the completion of the HF SoftRock with Si570 LO, I now have a tunable IF to play with the transverter.  We had a nice opening to the Southeast and Gulf this morning and I even heard my first DX with the transverter and SoftRock combination—CO2WF.  With the appropriate software, I can configure a the SoftRock as a panadapter with the TS-930S as the transmitter.  More on this in the future.  Best of friends:

The real next step in making the transverter useful is building a 20-watt PA stage.  This should be good for driving a Mirage or TE Systems brick or even something bigger like a 3CX800 or 50-volt solid-state amp…

Got the SoftRock v9.0 Lite+USB Xtall working last night.  I’m not 100% sure what the problem was, but I think it may have been due to me programming an ATTiny85 with the latest SoftRock firmware (V15.14), rather than using the supplied ATTiny45 with V15.4.  So, I’m sticking with old version for now.  Not sure if it was cockpit error on my part programming (more likely) or an incompatibility with the new firmware which is designed to work with the Ensemble series of SoftRocks.

As shown in the screenshot from Rocky above, there appears to be a spur that repeats every 1 kHz (see left side of the waterfall).  The right side of the waterfall is with the USB cable unplugged from the computer.  I’m 99% certain this is something internal to the SoftRock because I wrapped a few turns of the USB cable around a big type-31 ferrite toroid and the spurs are still there.  So, need to play with that.

I’m listening to a Es opening to the south on 50 MHz right now using the SoftRock as the RX IF.  Yes, that means that I got the RX on the transverter souped up a little hotter.  I will post something about that later today and place a non-causal link in this post.