Sort of.
Actually, it's not really that simple: For operation on 160 through 10 meters, the construction is rather straightforward but for the higher (VHF) and lower (LF, MF) frequency bands, a few "mods" have to be made - at the very least, some "custom" low-pass filters need to be made and modifications to the power amplifier. On the bands 160 through 10 meters the design of the circuitry means that at best, only a few hundred milliwatts of RF is possible with the parts supplied, the output power dropping off as one goes up in frequency. For WSPR, even a few 10s of milliwatts will usually yield the desired results (e.g. detection of band openings) but there are instances where more power
The power amplifier:
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| Figure 1: The front panel of my Ultimate 3S beacon, WSPRing away on 20 meters. You can tell that I live in the U.S. by the position of the "power" switch! Click on the image for a larger version. |
To minimize the cost, the power amplifier section (Q1-Q3) of the Ultimate 3S beacon uses BS170 N-channel low-power MOSFET transistors. These devices are capable of dissipating about 1/3-2/3 of a watt each and there is room for three of these devices. If an efficiency of about 50% can be obtained, it should be possible to safely get between 0.1 and 0.5 watts out of the beacon on the lower bands (e.g. 160-30 meters) - plenty for modes that allow very weak signals to be detected such as WSPR.
But, there is a problem. The BS170 is not an RF transistor, but designed for low-power switching such as level conversion, turning on LEDs, small motors and relays. At low frequencies - up to several MHz - it actually works quite well, capable of about a watt if three devices are installed, but by the time one gets to 10 meters it is, in this application, rather challenging to get more than about 100 milliwatts from the Ultimate 3 without a bit of tweaking.
Besides getting the available power amplifier kit for the beacon, one of the options the builder can choose is whether to wire the PA transistors for 5 volts or connect it to a higher-voltage power supply. In general, using a higher-voltage supply - say, 12-15 volts - will enable somewhat higher RF output power, but this also means that the same amount of bias current at 5 volts will result in higher power dissipation and finding the best value - without blowing up the transistors - is a bit of a delicate dance.
The problems:
The problems with this device at higher bands such 10/12 meters (and up) include:
- Device capacitance. There are a number of parasitic reactances involved - including the input and Miller capacitance. All of these conspire to make it more difficult achieve a wide voltage swing and/or to turn the FET on and off quickly - something that needs to be done to amplify higher frequencies efficiently
- The drive capability is rather limited. The power amplifier section of the Ultimate 3 beacon is driven directly by the synthesizer which, for older units (mostly the non-"S" version) could be a DDS board, but the more recent versions use the Si5351 synthesizer chip which has a somewhat lower output level. Neither of these devices produce enough output to "fully" drive the FET's gate.
One of the methods to deal with limited drive signals is to bias the transistor slightly. Because it - like any similar FET - takes a volt or three to start turning on, biasing the transistor toward "on" with a fixed DC voltage means that the limited RF drive signal doesn't have as "far to go" when it comes to driving the device.
Adding this bias works well - but only to a point: Eventually, the transistor is conducting so much DC current that it is dissipating heat at/near its maximum rating and increasing the bias even more to further increase its effective gain is not an option. One option is to add heat sinking (by gluing the transistors to a piece of aluminum or copper) to keep them cool, but this is of limited utility.
The Ultimate 3 beacon has the capability of using up to three of these transistors in parallel and while this can improve the power output at lower frequencies (maybe) the limited drive capability of the synthesizer - plus the fact that each transistor has its own capacitance - doesn't necessarily help. One other factor often overlooked is that FETs are notoriously inconsistent in their DC characteristics: Unless one goes through pains to sort and match individual FETs - even devices from the same lot - when several are placed in parallel and biased, one is inevitably going to pull more drain current than the others. This means than when several parallel devices are used, one or two are going to be doing most of the work and under stress while the other two (or one) will be doing comparatively little.
All of this would seem to be an argument to use a single, more capable amplifying transistor to obtain more output power.
Work-arounds:
The BS170 is quite popular in QRP transmitters because it is cheap, but it can be made to work "less badly" and the best way to do this is to strongly drive its gate with an RF signal. Often, high-speed CMOS gates are used for this such as a 74AS04 or equivalent with multiple sections wired in parallel. Doing this "brute force" drive technique can greatly improve the output capability of this otherwise low-frequency device and if done correctly, a DC bias is unneeded, saving a lot of hassle. Unfortunately, the Ultimate 3 beacon doesn't have a device like this in its signal path, instead connecting the output of the synthesizer (more or less) directly to the gate of the output transistor(s), but one could hack the circuit and wire such a device into the circuit.
Another work-around would be the use of a transistor specifically designed for RF use. While there are many such devices available, most are quite expensive or hard to find.
One such device is the RD16HHF1 made by Mitsubishi and recommended for the optional 5 watt PA board available from QRP Labs, but this transistor is becoming increasingly difficult to find. Taking into account the fact that it may difficult to use the original (small!) holes for the BS170, using this device should work well - provided that it is operated within the capabilities afforded by the limited ability to dissipate heat.
The RD16HHF1 is also a favorite for counterfeiters that take an ordinary FET's die, put it in a package and label it as the real thing: This fakery may work on lower bands, but it falls apart at higher bands for the same reasons that the BS170's efficacy drops off. Some counterfeiters don't even bother to mount a fake die, instead take an ordinary power FET and label it as an RD16HHF1: Because the drain and source connections of the RD16HHF1 is "backwards" from "normal" FETs, a device like this will simply short out the power supply! The only way to be absolutely sure that one has a genuine RD16HHF1 is to put it into a "component tester" - those inexpensive (<$20) devices that will identify practically anything - and see if its pin-out is correct and that its gate capacitance is in the 60-100pF area - and then try it in circuit.
The PD85004:
In perusing the catalogs I determined that a likely candidate device was the PD85004, made by ST Microdevices and available from a number of vendors such as Mouser Electronics. This device, designed to operate from 13.8 volts, is rated to output several watts at 900 MHz, so it should surely be coaxed to work at HF, right?
This device is a bit more expensive than the original, in single quantities costing about $3.25 each as opposed to about $0.50 each for the BS170 - but the expense isn't very onerous, and it is probably cheaper than a genuine RF16HHF1 - and it is also rated for operation at 13.8 volts.
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| Figure 2: The PD85004 mounted to an EvilBay SOT-89-4 carrier. Short wire leads go in holes 1, 2 and 3 to effectively turn it into a through-hole device. The heat sink was not yet added when this picture was taken. As described in the text, I eventually used a 10 ohm resistor for the gate lead (position 1) to prevent circuit instability. Click on the image for a slightly larger version. |
One complication with the use of this device is that it is available only in a surface-mount package. Fortunately, I had on hand some SOT-89-4 "carrier" boards (readily available on EvilBay - search for "SOT-89 adapter board") to which I soldered the device, effectively turning it into a leaded device that can be wired into the original FETs' board locations. These boards cost anywhere from $0.03-$0.20 each, if you buy 10 or more - and that price often includes shipping!
To improve device dissipation a piece of copper flashing was carefully soldered to the tab of this device (which is the grounded source lead) after it was mounted to the carrier (see Figure 3.) While the rated dissipation of this device is 6 watts, the mechanical layout of the Ultimate 3 beacon significantly limits the size of the heat sink as well as how much heat can be radiated/conducted to its surroundings.
Modifying the U3 for use with the PD85004:
Comment:
Earlier versions of the U3S specified a simple inductor ("L1") for the drain circuit of the power amplifier while later versions depict either a simple series inductor or a bifilar-wound transformer designated as "T1" - the latter being capable of somewhat more power with the original BS170. My U3S is of the earlier version with "L1". I've only tested it with the simple inductor, but this modification should work well with the "T1" configuration as well - but since it is untested, one should be particularly wary of instability.
Initially, I simply wired a PD85004 in place of a BS170 - but owing to the fact that the new device was designed to operate near 1 GHz - and that the layout of the U3 circuit board and interconnects didn't look to be particularly "VHF friendly" - so I expected that there could be some problems. Before powering it up for the first time I turned the bias potentiometer all of the way down and pre-set my bench supply to current-limit at 500 milliamps - just in case I'd miswired something or I'd managed to turn the bias control all of the way up, instead.
Powering up the beacon and temporarily disabling transmit (easily done in WSPR mode by disconnecting the GPS antenna that is used for timing) I noted the current consumption - about 350 mA, much of that being the LCD's back light - and carefully adjusted the bias to cause a 100mA increase in current consumption. With the antenna output of the beacon connected to a dummy load via a wattmeter I then reconnected the GPS antenna, readjusted the power supply current limiting and waited for the unit to come online and cycle through the various amateur bands while listening, in turn, to each frequency on a local receiver - using it as an oft-overlooked piece of useful test equipment that most amateur operators already own!
The result, not unexpected, was that I was able to get a power reading on each band, but on some bands - 160 through 40 meters - I heard a loud "hiss" +/- about 20 kHz from the transmit frequency instead of a CW note while the higher bands, 30 through 10 meters, sounded normal. This just goes to show that at these frequencies this GHz-rated device may need some "taming" to prevent the apparent low-frequency instability and that a wattmeter alone is not necessarily useful for determining if an amplifier is working properly!
To tame the amplifier, I did several things:
- I installed a 0.1uF between the wiper of the bias adjustment potentiometer R5 and ground.
- I placed a 220 ohm resistor in parallel with R6 from the bias supply. This, along with the added capacitor, helped "swamp" the drive signal and provide some lower impedance, low-frequency termination of the device's gate.
- I replaced the wire lead on the SOT-89 carrier that provided the gate connection with a 10 ohm resistor - pin "1" on the device carrier board in the pictures. This added resistance helps to break up effects of spurious reactances that can cause the transistor to behave badly in-circuit.
- Update: I decided wire in a series-connected 0.1uF capacitor and 1.5k resistor between the gate (pin 1) and drain (pin 3) to quell a suspected VHF/UHF instability under some conditions, manifested by the drain current changing slightly on some bands when I touched the grounded(!) heat sink.
- Update: I had to take the U3 apart for another reason and while I was at it I connected a 470 ohm, 1/2 watt resistor across L1 - between V+ and the drain - for good measure. See notes below about this change.
I then proceeded to carefully adjust the bias and watch the power meter. Turning up the bias to several hundred milliamps I observed that I could get 2-3 watts of "clean" RF on on every band - but this much power was too great for the heat sink - especially in a "closed up" case - but had an "infinite" heat sink been possible I'm certain that I could have safely operated at this power level. Monitoring the temperature of the heat sink I found that I could safely get about 1.5 watts out on 160-20 meters, dropping to about a watt on 10 meters, but erring on the side of caution I backed this off a bit to 0.5-0.75 watts on 10 meters which correlated with about 50mA of idle current.
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| Figure 3: The installed PD85004 with heat sink in the Ultimate 3S beacon for initial testing. A piece of copper was soldered to the tab of the transistor to allow it to dissipate a couple watts of heat. Unfortunately, there isn't really an easy way to make the heat sink capable of dissipating significantly more heat without mechanically complicating things. Not visible in this picture are the added 0.1uF capacitor between the wiper of R5 (the pot visible to the left of the transistor) and ground and the 220 ohm resistor in parallel with R6. Note that the connections from two of the three original BS170 positions were used to wire this transistor into the circuit. Behind the transistor is the "OCXO" version of the synthesizer and I could have soldered the heat sink to its case to improve dissipation, but this may risk reducing the OCXO's own thermal and frequency stability. This picture was taken before the 10 ohm resistor was put in series with the transistor's gate to quell instability, replacing the wire lead at position "1" on the carrier and before the addition of the series 1.5k and 0.1uF capacitor between the gate and drain.. Again, the PA section of my beacon is wired to operate from 13.8 volts. Click on the image for a larger version. |
On the air testing:
My "main" HF antenna is a "lazy loop" of about 225 feet (approx. 70 meters) circumference at an average height of around 30 feet (about 10 meters) feed with 450 ohm window line with a 1:1 balun in the shack - designed to be connected to an antenna tuner. Because I am not using the tuner with the U3 this means is my antenna it is not resonant (at 50 ohms) on any particular frequency, typically having a VSWR of greater than 5:1 on most bands. While this may sound bad, the window line itself contributes negligible loss of its own and a reasonably-designed power amplifier should be able to tolerate such a mismatch. I've run it this way for months with the BS170 finals without a problem and I've gotten reasonable signal reports.
When I connected the modified Ultimate 3S beacon to this antenna, everything worked fine - until I got to 40 meters, at which point I'd hear a loud "click" on the local receiver and the display would go blank. Apparently, the bad (reactive) termination of the antenna caused the amplifier section to "take off" into some sort of mode of instability and somehow crash the beacon's processor.
Adding a "wee bit" of attenuation:
The work-around was to add an (approximately) 1.5dB resistive pad in series with output antenna connection. Consisting of two 3.9 ohms resistors and a 220 ohm resistor in a "Tee" arrangement, this prevented the return loss as seen by the beacon from ever exceeding about 3dB, or a VSWR of about 6:1. This little bit of padding reduced the transmit power only a fraction of an "S" unit, but with its added 3dB of return loss was sufficient to keep the amplifier stable on all of the bands.
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| Figure 4: Typical "T" type resistive attenuator that can be useful for preventing instability and/or damage to the final transistor in the event of a poor match to 50 ohms. These resistors were wired/mounted at the RF output connector, after any low-pass filtering. For Ra I used the standard values of 3.9 ohms and for Rb, 220 ohms, resulting in approximately 1.5dB of attenuation. For the 2.5 dB attenuator on the WA7X beacon, Ra was 6.8 ohms and Rb was 180 ohms. Neither of these sets of values are precise 50 ohm matches, but they are more than "good enough"! At up to a watt of RF, 1/4 watt resistors may be used for Ra but a 1 watt resistor (or multiple, lower-power resistors) should be used for Rb so that it can tolerate very high mismatch conditions. |
The addition of a bit of attenuation on a transmitter like this isn't necessarily a bad thing as it can offer a bit of protection - both in terms of VSWR and things like lightning strikes, offering both a DC discharge path and act as a bit of a "sponge" for induced spikes and excess power. Even with this bit of attenuation I can safely coax about 1 watt of RF output on 160 through 20 meters, dropping to a bit over 0.5 watts on 10 meters - about 10dB better than I'd managed with a single BS170 on that band. Because of the mismatch and commensurate losses I've currently set the WSPR beacon to report half this amount of power on some bands, but will increase it again when (?) I get around to putting up a multi-band matched antenna system.
The use of a resistive pad on the output of the transmitter had a precedent. Upon installing another Ultimate 3S for the WA7X beacon at a remote cabin - this system operating exclusively on 10 meters - we discovered, the hard way, that the optional 5 watt amplifier (using an RD16HHF1) didn't like it when the 10 meter vertical was temporarily detuned due to snow, causing a mismatch that resulted in the coincident failure of the output transistor. In that case we added a 2.5 dB resistive pad (5 dB added return loss) to prevent the beacon from ever seeing worse than a 4.5:1 VSWR (even if the antenna connection were accidentally removed) and instead of 5 watts, the beacon is now operating at "2 watts" and is pretty "bullet-proof", reliability being very important for a remotely-controlled beacon at a remote location.
If that hadn't stopped the instability...
If the amplifier hadn't been adequately stabilized by the aforementioned modifications, there would have been two more things that I would have tried:
- (Now done - see note above) - Add a 220-470 ohm, 1/2 watt resistor across T1 (or L1), the output transformer (coil) between V+ and the output transistor(s) drain(s). This resistor can help "Q-spoil" a low frequency resonance on the inductance of L1 that may cause similar oscillations. This sort of instability is quite common, often due to the fact that RF devices can have tremendous gain at very low frequencies and the interaction with the rather large amount of inductance of the coupling transformer. My U3 is a bit older and uses "L1" which is simply an inductor between the drain of Q1-Q3 and V+. If you have chosen a bifilar/trifilar transformer (e.g. "T1") then this resistor would be wired between V+ and the drain.
- (Already done - see note above) - Add a series 1k resistor and 0.1uF capacitor between the output transistor drain and gate. This degenerative feedback will also help quell spurious oscillations.
Final comments:
I started out this blog entry with the mention of bands above 10 meters, which naturally brings up the question: Will this same modification work on 6 meters and higher?
The answer is yes, probably.
While I can imagine that it should be possible to obtain, perhaps, 0.25-0.5 watts on 6 meters with this same device and using similar techniques, going up much higher in frequency and getting some RF power will probably require a bit of modification as the board layouts and interconnects start to get a bit "iffy" at VHF and higher, requiring special care to avoid excessive harmonic content and other spurious signals.
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Stolen from ka7oei.blogspot.com
Nice work. I might want to try this.
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