• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Blog Page

The Dummyloads

Where ham brains come to fry

Where ham brains come to fry

  • Ham Radio
    • CW
    • Digital
  • Activities
    • Day Trips
    • Field Days
    • Ham Coms
    • NPOTA/POTA
    • SOTA
  • Equipment
    • Transceivers
    • Antennas
    • Analyzer
    • Tuners
    • Computers
    • Power Sources
    • CW Keys
    • Diagnostic Tools
  • Tools
    • Dipole Length Calculator
  • Off Topic
  • Homebrew
    • Direct Conversion
    • Homebrew Tuners
    • LM386
    • NE602
  • kits

Archives for November 2018

My Rig Expert AA-230 Has Arrived

November 20, 2018

I cannot express to you how excited I am about this thing.  Unfortunately I have a grand total of zero N type connectors or devices that have N type connectors on them.  Fortunately Rig Expert provides an N to SO-239 adapter.  I can get from SO-239 to pretty much anything else I might need.

An example of what you can see with a Rig Expert.

Strangely upon getting this thing I had a heck of a time getting it to give me a legit measurement.  For some reason I kept getting an infinite measurement.  The first thing I wanted to test was my dummy load.  No luck.  Then I decided I wanted to see what the Smith Chart looked like on some conventional Transformers I had built some time ago.  I know that the inductance checked out on the windings, but I had never had a measurement device capable of showing me if it actually worked.  So I found a 200 Ohm resistor to test my 4:1 conventional transformer.  This should give me a reading pretty near 1:1 SWR.

Infinite.

Maybe I got a bad resistor.  After wiggling things a bit and trying a new resistor.  BAM. . . I have a reading.  It checks out.  I go on the the 2:1 transformer, etc.  All tests come out showing that I did in fact make these things correctly!!

If you can read this, you will now know how bad the match is on my 630M antenna

The next thing I do is put the analyzer into the front end of the receiver I built so that I can peak the input filter to be right at 7 MHz.  It turns out I was off by quite a bit!  I made some adjustments and will have to get back to you on whether it makes a difference in receiving actual Amateur Radio frequencies.

I go on to measure my 630M antenna.  I’ve known for a while that the phase of Voltage and current have not been right in sync so my tuning network was off a little.  I had tuned it and thought I had it as close as I could with the scope match.  Turns out as I had my rig expert attached I was able to get the waves in phase.  YEAH!  Unfortunately the magnitudes are not equal, but hey #firstworldproblems.

I plan on working on a better matching network for the 630M set up eventually.  I would sure like it to take up a little less space and I would like to put a little more power into it.  As it stands now my ERP is in the micro watt power level.  It would be great if I could get to milliwatts.  🙂

OK. . . More things to measure. . . I will keep you all posted on what I find!

KF5RY

 

mm
Steve Parks

I’m a relatively new ham. Got my license, joined a club and I’m having fun! I enjoy CW, pedestrian mobile, backpacking, and I dream of building radios at some point. At present I have a wife and daughters so my building time is limited.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Amateur Radio, Antenna Analyzer, Rig Expert

Primary Sidebar

Most Popular Posts

It’s ALIVE!!

Ham Gadgets Ultra Pico Keyer

Don’t Miss These!

It’s ALIVE!!

QRP From the Park

Flight of the Bumblebees

KF5RY’s 2017 Field Day

Copyright© 2023 · by K5HH