Old veronica transmitter 12w fault

[sinus trouble]

Lol i know what you mean Mr analyser!
The more i read the ebay description, the more confusion occurs??
Firstly it states that "If you dont know what you are doing? Dont buy this" then says it can be set up easily with no test equipment to "Radio authority standard"
Unless the whole unit is entirely broadband? (which veronica or nrg have never done) accuracy will never be achieved with a few LEDs!!
Also does the unit come with instructions?? (DIP setting details ect....)

[Novaro]

When i first set the freq (in the opposite order ons to offs and offs to on position)

Sorry Mr Novaro? Im not sure what you mean? The DIP switches??

Yes the dip switches! I thought the up position was the desired but was the down position!


It is the first time i see such dip switches.
Usually the dip movements are parallel to the surface of pcb.

[Novaro]

I am totally confused now. The only thing I can think of at the moment is that the Ebay listing said this item was new, therefore one would have thought everything was working. If the OP has no power meter and only an aerial to test, where do you start????

I have at least a multimeter to test voltages at the transistors but someone has to tell me.

[Analyser]

I have at least a multimeter to test voltages at the transistors but someone has to tell me.

[thewisepranker]

Nice link, Analyser. That bloke is really good - I've been watching his videos for a while now.
I try to watch every single video as soon as he uploads them. I always learn something even if the topic is something that I know quite a lot about.

[Analyser]

Nice link, Analyser. That bloke is really good - I've been watching his videos for a while now.
I try to watch every single video as soon as he uploads them. I always learn something even if the topic is something that I know quite a lot about.

Me too, I try and watch all of them. There's quite a lot of shite on youtube but a few good people as well. I particularly like 'The Signal Path Blog' , lots of RF stuff and well explained. The guy from EEVblog is quite clever but he has a really annoying voice and his videos go on far too long so I don't watch many of those.

[sinus trouble]

I Agree! Great Vid!
I think Mr Novaro should defo invest in some sort of SWR meter? Even if its a cheappie one!
But thumbs up for having a multimeter, thats an excellent start! im always using mine for setting up Amplifiers, Idq and Vgth etc

[sinus trouble]

Also Mr Novaro should bear in mind that any suspect components need removing from the board to conduct some types of testing! resistors, inductors and other components 'in circuit' can give false results!

[thewisepranker]

Me too, I try and watch all of them. There's quite a lot of shite on youtube but a few good people as well. I particularly like 'The Signal Path Blog' , lots of RF stuff and well explained. The guy from EEVblog is quite clever but he has a really annoying voice and his videos go on far too long so I don't watch many of those.

Yeah I've stopped watching Dave's videos for those reasons. Mainly because they're so bloody long when they could be a third the length. He repeats himself a lot.

Mikeselectricstuff is quite a good one, but biased towards digital I suppose. He's a British guy that does a few teardowns but admits when he doesn't fully understand what he's looking at (i.e. some RF "voodoo" as he calls it) but pays attention to the comments.



The Signal Path is good - they guy is really enthusiastic. He winds me up a bit, though - where the hell does he find all of this high end broken kit that hasn't caught fire or been dropped?

[MiXiN]

Just watched about 2 min's of that EEVblog guy opening up a vintage portable TV, and I hear you - the man is annoying.

I won't be watching any more videos by him, rest assured!

[Gum]

He's that ozzy twat with the crazy-eye stare who thinks everything is a wet dream, isn't he?

Cunt. I hope he catches myxomatosis...

[MiXiN]

He's that ozzy twat with the crazy-eye stare who thinks everything is a wet dream, isn't he?

Cunt. I hope he catches myxomatosis...

Yep, that's the one.

His clips are educational for the most part, but listening to him for more than 2 mins gets monotonous and grates.

I night on the piss with him would result in me getting nicked for a section 18 on him. Lol.

[Novaro]

Finally got it fixed by a local technician. All good until now! Thank you for all the help you provided.
Its a nice transmitter. I dont use the stereo encoder. I am running it using software processor with better results.

[Novaro]

I am back after a few years!

Thinking of buying some vintage equipment
1. A digilog 2 stereo encoder 130 euros (now on ebay)
2. A drawmer lx20 I have read some good thinks about radio use or
3. A behringer mdx 2600

What do you think? is really the digilog 2 so good sound quality wise as people say? Compared to pira from the friend in Turkey?

[Novaro]

I am posting a useful piece of info I found for the veronica pll3 .
stanpedro diyAudio Member

Join Date: Jun 2014
the TRW PT8860 is a 1.8 watts npn rf transistor at 175MHZ. it is the final out in the veronica 1 watt PLL3 transmitter. the driver for it is the 2N4427; (1 watt at 175MHz) and i think this is what you are looking at. i have one and i can tell you pt8860 is almost impossible to find but there is hope. ECG/NTE 472 (2N5913) and MRF607 are exact replacement fot it. 1.8 watts at 175MHz and all other specs are identical. you can get it on ebay

[radium98]

use c1947 4w at 175 mhz

[Albert H]

Yeah I wasn't suggesting you just started replacing everything until you get it working again. Simply disconnect RF from exciter to the PA and connect the exciter straight to your meter/DL to see if your getting correct power output.

I will disconnect the exciter board and connect directly to aerial. I don't have an swr meter at the moment.
The RF stage of exciter has two transistors one 2n4427 and one TRW as final. If only the TRW is broken then alone the 2n4427 would give 100mw output enough to get reception 200 meters with aerial connected. I believe more possible that at least the 2n4427 is broken. Thats why my output is only from bf494 of previous stage only a few milliwatts in value.

The 2N4427 before the output device is meant to give 1 Watt. Be careful with this (somewhat nasty) "Veronica" copy. Paul the prat tried to cheapen the design, and in doing so upset the essential balance of the oscillator. You'll get ½f, f, 1½f, 2f etc out of the drive stage.

[sinus trouble]

Glad you got it going Mr Novaro!

As Albert mentioned, If you have an Original Veronica? I see no reason why you would not use the stereo coder! Excellent quality!
If you are using software? You may aswell just use that to do the limiting too!
Drawmer kit are excellent quality but I think you may struggle to find one in good condition?
My experience with Behringer has been terrible!! Don't waste your money on them cheap things!
The Alesis 3632 is what I currently use and have never had any issues with it so far!
Happy Broadcasting!

[Albert H]

When i first set the freq (in the opposite order ons to offs and offs to on position)

Sorry Mr Novaro? Im not sure what you mean? The DIP switches??

Yes the dip switches! I thought the up position was the desired but was the down position!


It is the first time i see such dip switches.
Usually the dip movements are parallel to the surface of pcb.

Setting the DIP switches wrongly won't do any damage. The PLL will just fail to lock!

[Albert H]

I am posting a useful piece of info I found for the veronica pll3 .
stanpedro diyAudio Member

Join Date: Jun 2014
the TRW PT8860 is a 1.8 watts npn rf transistor at 175MHZ. it is the final out in the veronica 1 watt PLL3 transmitter. the driver for it is the 2N4427; (1 watt at 175MHz) and i think this is what you are looking at. i have one and i can tell you pt8860 is almost impossible to find but there is hope. ECG/NTE 472 (2N5913) and MRF607 are exact replacement fot it. 1.8 watts at 175MHz and all other specs are identical. you can get it on ebay

Wrong! The PT8860 is rated at 11Watts RF out at 400MHz with a 13.8V supply. I have the page of the 1981 TRW specification book open here as I type. I've run these on Band II as both drivers (using them for 8 Watts to drive a pair of BLW60s to about 80 Watts) and as output devices when I've needed 10 Watts in a hurry! They're really ancient devices, and have about 7dB of gain at 400MHz, rising to around 11dB of gain at Band II. This suggests that Paul's 2N4427 should be doing around a Watt to get 12 Watts out of the PA.

The only reason that Paul used these transistors is because they were available on the surplus market for 50p - £1 in the late 80s and early 90s. They're not particularly robust, unless they're really under-run. The SOAR is surprisingly small for a TRW device of that vintage.