Over the past week in the evenings, I’ve managed to cobble a little PA together for the 50-MHz transverter. It’s a near-clone of the PA in the Elecraft XV50 using the Mitsubishi RA30H0608M. Last night, I got it all hooked up and installed in the cabinet. It broke into oscillation when keyed on CW.
The oscillation was about 50.040 MHz. I reasoned that it might be the PA output coupling into the nearby TX RF bandpass filters which are followed by 12 dB of gain before returning to the PA. So, tonight, I added a litle shield between the BPF and the PA board. That seemed to clear things up and I got about 10 watts out. There is a 6-dB pad between the last driver stage and the PA, so I should be able to get it up to about 18-20 watts. But, the first goal will be to check the linearity on SSB.
In other transmit capability news, some boxes and heatsinks arrived for the W6PQL PAs for 903 and 1296 this afternoon.
