DXPatrol Upconverter Power adjustment

  • Hi together,


    after a damage, I want to change my amp from DX-Patrol 12W Amp to a SG-Labs Modell. V2 has an Input of 500mW and the new V3 max 100mW. I look for the V3 Version but I don´t not know If I can reduce the DX-Patrol-Upconverter to abt 40mW out with the inside power adjustment.

    Has anybody test the UpConverter V3, how deep you can reduce the output of the upconverter Version 3?


    Regards

    Thorsten

  • Hello Thorsten,


    I am not familiar with the DX-Patrol up-converter but I assume that it is working as a linear converter. So what you would need is a relatively cheap step attenuator on thw input side of the converter to reduce the output power. This step attenuator only needs to be suitable for the input frequency and not for 2.4Ghz. I have seen those already for around 20 or 30 Euro.


    The SG-Lab PA is very linear, even down to very low power, see my report at


    SG-Labs 20 W PA V.3



    Vy 73


    Holger ‚Geri‘, DK8KW

  • Dear Thorsten,


    Although this is a thread from 3 years old, i can enlighten you with some information. I blew up the PA from my DXpatrol QO-100 groundstation (old version) and was also thinking of replace it by a SG-Labs V3 one.
    The output from the DXpatrol transverter board is about 25-60 mW (P38). That is a perfect powerlevel for the SG-lab PA (max 50mW input). I tried already in lose components at the workbench, and it gives 12 real watts to the antenna connector at 24 volts into the analyser.

    The original DXpatrol claims 10-12 watts, but I have never seen that on the analyser. 7-8 watts at highest level. For the extra PTT/VOX pin on the SGlabs is no need to connect somewhere. If the readings at the front are matching, I have still to discover that, drill the extra holes in the SG-labs ans so on.

    Maybe someone out there is searching for this modification and can now find a acknowledgement for doing it .


    My extra 2 cents:


    An extra thought is placing an extra Chinese small amplifier PCB and an extra PCB fingerfilter and push it to 20 watts. But I suppose that it then suffers from enough cooling in the standard box.


    regards,

    Jugo PA1AIS

  • I completed the conversion of replacement the DXpatrol PA into a SGlabs PA in the DXpatrol groundstation (old type). i give a solid 12-14 watts output power. Besides a slightly major mechanical transformation with an extra cooling plate installed, the job was pretty 1:1 to do. The experiment with an extra SG5189 amplifier and bandfilter with attenuator did not give extra power as expected.

    Just straight forward 1:1 build in worked fine.