fmmpastouni wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 10:14 am
Hello.I tried to make the mods for variable rf power and rf power shutdown when unlocked.Parts that need to be added are in blue rectangles.Hope it works and its not an overkill of parts
Sadly, your variable power modification won't work, because the final stage isn't linear - varying the drive power might make a very small change to the power output, but when the drive drops below the point at which the final will conduct, you'll just get no output at all! It's usually best to run the Class C final with just the right amount of drive so that it doesn't get saturated (which gives rise to harmonics).
Some "engineers" don't understand the problem, and try to make their exciters "no tune" by overdriving their final stage to get a "flat" output across the band (look at the A****f effort for an example of this). This practice invariably makes for a really nasty, dirty output spectrum - especially if the output filter is inadequate or poorly laid out (A****f again!).
Variable power out isn't trivial to achieve, and most design engineers don't bother to try to do this. You have to bear in mind that if you change the supply voltage, you'll also change the output match impedance, so the values needed in the final match to convert the lower output impedance of the transistor to the 50Ω or 75Ω that you want to feed into your coax. This is true both in exciter stages and in PAs.
Stephen Moss was lucky with the PLL Pro III (after a hell of a lot of experimentation) - he was able to get the final transistor to deliver ~4 Watts with its emitter grounded, and 1 Watt with the emitter sitting on top of a couple of power resistors. He managed to achieve a "conjugate" match in the lower power setting. If you try different emitter resistors (in an effort to get 2 Watts, perhaps), you'll find that you have a mismatch at the collector.... There are only the two power settings that work! In reality, the output match is even cleverer than it looks - the PLL Pro III gives 4 Watts at 88 MHz, and about 4.3 Watts at 108 MHz - this "sloping" output power was done to account for the gain droop with increasing frequency of the transistors he used in his PA modules. The 40 Watt BLW60C PA would give
exactly 40 Watts out at any Band II frequency when driven by the PLL Pro III board.
There is little point in trying to make a variable power transmitter. For example: DB Elettronica make one which gives 300 Watts out at full power. They specify the harmonic and spurious content at 300 Watts out, but don't give any figures for when the power is turned down!
If you want your rig to deliver 10 Watts, design for 10 Watts, not 1 - 10 Watts! If you want 1 Watt, just design for 1 Watt. Incidentally, with a 12.65 Volt supply (allowing for 0.65V transistor loss) and 1 Watt, you'll get a natural match of 72Ω - ideal for feeding into "75Ω" coax (it's not - it's usually closer to 72Ω). Most of my Band IV link rigs would do 1 Watt, and would naturally match into TV coax and a TV Yagi. This makes for efficient, cheap link gear!