New QRP-uBITX in the shack - III - Transmitter section mods

OK, it was the time to see how the TX section of the uBITX is...










From time to time I also tested how it fits inside the case...
The radio PCB was fixed on a larger one-side plated PCB that slides into the aluminium case.

I also checked the front panel to see if the potentiometers and other stuff are OK with the main board...






First of all, the Tx power was around 7-8 W PEP on 80 and 40 m bands, decreasing to around 2W on the higher frequencies.


First tought was to fiddle aronud with the IRF transistors... I was eager to try to change them with RD16HHF1...

So, I changed them (sorry, have no pictures about this :-( ) and also changed the T11 with one 1:2 made on a BN61-202 core (I am not sure about the size but the ferrite mix is definetly a "61" type).

I noticed that the C261 and C202 was missing.... What???  Yeap, they was missing!
So, I changed the R261/R262 with 1kOhm and put there two capacitors of 1nF.
Also set the drain current to about 250 mA for each transistor.

The results was not able to convince me... The transistors ran hot, too hot and the Tx power was about the same.

So, I reverted back to IRF510, kept the new transformer. I kept the neutralisation network as described above and put a 27 pF between the Draines of Q94 and Q95.

The Drain current was set at 150mA each.

I removed the original transistors Q90, Q911, Q912, Q92, Q93, Q96 and Q97 (2n3904) and put some female pins instead to play with other transistors.

I have a lot of BFW17 and BLW65 and by looking at the datasheets, I choose BFW17.

I masured the transistors to have identical hFE and I choose one with 120 for the Q90 and the rest of them was with hFE of 92.

I added some 33Ohm resistors (paralleled) on the R87, R88, R911, R96, R941 and R942.

After this mods, I fired up the Tx answering to some CQ's and the power-meter showed about 12-17 W PEP on all range (1.8 MHz - 29 MHz).

I still had to put it on the Spectrum analyser and do the two tone test...

You can see two RG317 wires. Those are to put the final stage to test on the Spectrum analyser with tracking generator to see what is the effect of the mods I made on the PA.

Again, testing if it fits inside...

Here you can see the new output transformer and the PARF radiator.


Also, on the Raduino board (which will have it's own story), you can see a big 0,45 Ohm/3W resistor in series with the LM7805 input.

At the RF output, a 1:1 choke balun was made from the RG317 on a 43 mix toroid and a gas discharge protection was added.