October 30, 2020
I'm piecing together a small (1.6M) 23cm EME station for home and portable operations. It will be good to get Montana going on 23cm EME. The project is 90% complete. I already own an Icom IC-9700 with GPSDO so the exciter was not an issue. The key part of the project - the small W2HRO folding dish antenna with patch feed has shipped. Paul's design work and implementation is amazing, my bet is that it will allow many more folks to play 23cm EME going forward.
This morning I completed the amp, based on a W6PQL 600w pallet, set the idle 50 VDC VDD to 1.7 amps and gave it the smoke test. Given the power limitations of the Hybrid combiner used with the patch feed to generate circular polarity I'd call 2.7 watts drive for 300 watts out optimal.
Bench test results @ 1296.70Mhz
Drive Output
1W 110W
2W 205W
3W 350W
4W 450W
A pre-amp, and the isolation relay should be here in the next few days. Then I'm ready to try my fifth EME band!
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| A pandemic moves ham radio projects along nicely. 500w amp. |
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| Setting the VDD idle current on the 23cm amp. |
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| W2HRO dish being tested, now headed this way. |
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| A good look at W2HRO's craftsmanship. |