I've been on the amateur bands for many years with vintage radios. In September 2010, I replaced all my 50's gear with a Flex 5000A.
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2Photo 1: Shack equipment overview.
Photo 2: Garage equipment overview.
THE FLEX COMPONENTS:
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Photo 1 left: Tower computer: 2.93 Ghz Intel i7 875 four core cpu with 4 gigabytes of DDR3 1600 RAM and a 640 gig hard drive. Video card is an EVGA GTX-740 GPU with 1280 MB of 330 bit memory. Operating system is Windows XP professional.
Photo 1 right: Flex 5000A: 100 watts PEP CW and SSB (25 watt carrier AM) all modes 160 through 6 meters.
Photo 2: Astron 35 amp power supply.
Photo 3: Dell ST2410 24 inch Full HD Wide screen monitor, 1920 x 1080, 5 ms response time. (Screen is shown displaying and AM transmission test with a 1000 cycle tone at 12 watts PEP).
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Photo 1: Electro-Voice RE27N/D dynamic microphone, 150 ohm balanced output, 45 Hz to 20 kHz response. The Electro-voice model 309A uses shock mount elastic bands (part number 78297) and the bands last about 2 years.
Photo 2: Mackie 1202-VLZ 12 channel mic/line Pro Mixer. Bullet-proof design for RF rejection. Very low noise and enough gain for low impedance microphones. All settings are flat, because I have a Behringer DEQ2496 processor.
Photo 3: Behringer DEQ2496 digital audio processor. I turned off the GEQ and LIMIT functions and use the DEQ and DYN functions. Some of the initial settings were from Tyler KA0KA, which are posted on the NU9N.COM internet site.
Parametric Equalizer settings for my voice characteristics and voice preferences.
TRANSMITTER TUNE UP EQUIPMENT:
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Photos 1&2: Homebrew RF sampler made from an A-B coax switch: The internal switch parts were removed. The "A" side directly connects the RF from transmitter to antenna. The "B" side, which is near the RF feed, is grounded at one end and attached to the RF pickup connector at the other end. (For a low power transmitter, the pickup side would be longer and more in parallel with the RF side). The pickup connector feeds the oscilloscope which is one of the best ways to tune up a transmitter in AM service.
Photo 3 top: Bird wattmeters measuring RMS output from the Flex 5000 and PEP output from the linear amp out in the garage. Photo 3 bottom: Elenco S-1325, dual trace, 30 Mhz Oscilloscope. This scope is invaluable for tuning up the linear amplifiers in Amplitude Modulation service.
Photo 4 foreground: 1000 watt military dummy load in the garage, background: Bird 500 watt dummy load in the shack.
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1. Overview of the linear amplifiers in the garage. They were moved out of the shack to
eliminate blower noise and heat.
2: Homebrew conversion of a Plasma Amp to a 40 meter linear with a
3CX3000F7.
Click
HERE
to see this amplifier.
3. Homebrew 3CX3000F7, 160 thru 20 meter linear built inside a Gates
cabinet and the
accompanying homebrew high voltage supply in the black Bud cabinet.
ANTENNA SWITCHING:
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1: Alpha Delta antenna coax switches to amplifiers, antennas and dummy load.
2: Antenna selection switch.
3: Transmitter/transceiver selection switch.
4: Linear Input Switch.
5: Linear Output Switch.
160 meter dipole: 245 feet of #10 copperweld, fed at the center with LMR 400 Coax, 60 feet high at one end, 15 feet at the other end running north-east to south-west.
75 meter dipole: 123 feet of #10 stranded flex copper, fed at the center with LMR 600 Coax, 60 feet high running north to south. Sixty feet below the center feed is a choke balun wound around 5 inch PVC.
40 meters:
40 meter dipole: 64 feet of flex wire, fed at the center with LMR 400 coax. 60 feet at the high end and 25 feet at the low end. A choke balun is 60 feet below the feed point.
