1st...You need to build outdoor unit for QO-100. Cable loss is significant. This needs to be mounted on the backside of the dish. 2. Heatsink is OK for maybe 50W of constant RF output. Way to small for full power. 3. SMA is bad choice for output, best option here is to mount panel N connector with semirigid on the other side, directly soldered to the board 73 de SQ6QV, see You on WB.
I’ve been on WB for some months now as I already have another 200 Watt amp. All my QO100 gear is remote, over network near the dish already :) I was advised by manufacture not to solder coax directly to the board. I’m using SM141-50R rigid cable for inside to panel connectors. I couldn’t locate an N-Type male for SM141 cable, so that’s why I’m using SMA on output. All these Nokia pallets everyone using SMA for output so should be okay. I will never need full power from this amp, even for WB. I don’t transmit above 333Ks anyhow lol :) thanks 🙏
I have half a dozen N-Type Males that have SMA adaptors for SM141 semi-rigid. You have to do the job right first time, or leave well alone. Why you want to have 300W is anyone's guess, but you do the same with 30-50W with P5s. You really ought to consider water-cooling the heat-sink with a small refrigerant between the tank, even if only 30% duty cycle time. Because you TX at 100% duty cycle for 3 minutes out of every 9 minutes. This makes sense.@@TechMindsOfficial Best wishes from a guy that's been heard on your channel.
I add circulator to mine to protect from high SWR and unwanted out of band signal and he is outdoor at dish side , less loss in cable, USE N connector for the output !
I recommend a single large fan placed on top of the heatsink over the device, blowing down into the heatsink. With end mounted fans you're sending some heat back towards the device.
This absolutely correct. I worked on commercial high power high frequency transmitters previously, the was fan blowing directly at the base of the heatsink, not across. Also, you should smooth the contact surface on the bottom of the amplifier module. Very fine sandpaper (600 - 1800) on a flat surface with a lubricant, for ally, water works.
You need to get a proper three part set of taps (taper, standard and plug tap) for each size you need to tap plus the correct size of tapping drill and a hand tap wrench. Trying to machine tap small sizes like this usually ends in tears.
The output connector needs to be a 4.3 - 10 type. An SMA is too small. Look at what the use in cell phone transmitters. I agree that water cooling is a good idea to reduce noise, but this thing should be at the antenna, not on the bench. A good circulator system to protect the PA and couple the receive line is advisable. No nasty relays at this frequency.
I think you'll find you need another box/can over the amp to stop stay RF getting into wires within the box. Feed thru caps into that box maybe also needed as well - just an observation. A circulator / isolator + load is a good idea to stop you blowing it up with bad a SWR ! (watch out for arcing)
This is interesting Matt, something I have not yet ventured into. Am I right in understanding that a heatsink dissipates heat better by mounting vertically?
There's a lot of factors, and if the PC world taught me anything, it's just to try every way until you find the best! 🙃 Even a decision about what way the fan blows with cause division, to blow up the way sucking air in along the fins, or fan blowing down the way forcing air along the fins and out Speaking of PCs though..... you get some great prices on their stonking great CPU coolers nowadays, and some aftermarket grfx card ones are hella pretty as well as functional, maybe folks might think about using them for particularly toasty bits of equipment 🤔
Heated air flows upwards because it weighs less, if you place your heatsink horizontal heated air molecules will collide into other parts of the heatsink creating useless areas for cooling whereas vertically they can freely and constantly have their way out, all manufacturers use this technique when not using forced venting, it works exactly like your home radiator. The only drawback is if your home stereo amplifier vents upwards you'll have a nightmare cleaning dust in very dusty areas like where I live when the product is not sealed and is free to air
Hi, do you do custom work? I am looking for a fully built RF amp focused on 470-490 mhz. 3-5 watts. 12-15v dc. Do you have anything like this? Thank you, V
What ya do is bend some copper pipe in a zig zag shape to go between the heatsink fins so then ya got some water cooling aswell cause ur goin to need it ;) and btw that circulator will need a heatsink and ya better off mounting it as close to the RF PA as possible
Circulator that is being built for me has its own heatsinked 50cOhm terminator :-). And yep, I had though about doing exactly as you described with copper pipe and water cooling. We will see what happens as we progress with the build. Thanks 🙏
I’ll have to speak with E-Reon about that as I’ve been told that by someone else. I’m sure they have it in hand though, maybe a drop in replacement of sorts.
@@TechMindsOfficial My first thought was to have a look at the datasheet, then check price and availability through Digi-Key and Mouser. The “replacement” is a substantially different device...
@@TechMindsOfficial Good to hear it! As a western Canadian I won't be playing with QO-100 any time soon, but an amplifier like this is easily EME capable with a decent antenna.
Explains why 2.4GHz is so terrible. "My SNR is low, must be newly installed outdoor equipment. Time to hike up the output power." 250W, wowza. With a directional dish youre making some good coverage with that 😅
Too bad you can’t just wire your Tx into your microwave oven and connect the appropriate antenna to the magnetron. Then you can cook your popcorn, your neighbors wifi, and those pesky drones. Very cool
The cavities are not drilled to close enough tolerance. The frequency would rift all over the place. You'd be in and out of QO100 all the time, and you'd piss people off royally😁
Bloody hell matt that’s a serious bit of kit!!
Wow! It's about time Tech Minds put that big hammer down! Nice box!
Btw for fans to work like that u want them at the LDMOS end and also something over the top of the fins to make a tunnel or u wont have much cooling
You should use a liquid cooler. Find old tig welder for pump, and plumbing. More efficient cooling, and don’t have to hear it.
1st...You need to build outdoor unit for QO-100. Cable loss is significant. This needs to be mounted on the backside of the dish.
2. Heatsink is OK for maybe 50W of constant RF output. Way to small for full power.
3. SMA is bad choice for output, best option here is to mount panel N connector with semirigid on the other side, directly soldered to the board
73 de SQ6QV, see You on WB.
I’ve been on WB for some months now as I already have another 200 Watt amp. All my QO100 gear is remote, over network near the dish already :) I was advised by manufacture not to solder coax directly to the board. I’m using SM141-50R rigid cable for inside to panel connectors. I couldn’t locate an N-Type male for SM141 cable, so that’s why I’m using SMA on output. All these Nokia pallets everyone using SMA for output so should be okay. I will never need full power from this amp, even for WB. I don’t transmit above 333Ks anyhow lol :) thanks 🙏
@@TechMindsOfficial with 300W you can do 6Ms
I have half a dozen N-Type Males that have SMA adaptors for SM141 semi-rigid. You have to do the job right first time, or leave well alone. Why you want to have 300W is anyone's guess, but you do the same with 30-50W with P5s. You really ought to consider water-cooling the heat-sink with a small refrigerant between the tank, even if only 30% duty cycle time. Because you TX at 100% duty cycle for 3 minutes out of every 9 minutes. This makes sense.@@TechMindsOfficial Best wishes from a guy that's been heard on your channel.
I add circulator to mine to protect from high SWR and unwanted out of band signal and he is outdoor at dish side , less loss in cable, USE N connector for the output !
Nice video with a reasonable amount of microwave burn warning ⚠️ 🔥 😅
I’ll be sticking with my 5 watts for QO100 😊
I recommend a single large fan placed on top of the heatsink over the device, blowing down into the heatsink. With end mounted fans you're sending some heat back towards the device.
This absolutely correct. I worked on commercial high power high frequency transmitters previously, the was fan blowing directly at the base of the heatsink, not across. Also, you should smooth the contact surface on the bottom of the amplifier module. Very fine sandpaper (600 - 1800) on a flat surface with a lubricant, for ally, water works.
I did that
Like lapping cpu in the sub ghz
You need to get a proper three part set of taps (taper, standard and plug tap) for each size you need to tap plus the correct size of tapping drill and a hand tap wrench. Trying to machine tap small sizes like this usually ends in tears.
Can you hear me now ? No ? Hold on let me flip a switch and try it again 😉
I’m British, not Italian! 😂
@@TechMindsOfficial ollllla!!!!!
The output connector needs to be a 4.3 - 10 type. An SMA is too small. Look at what the use in cell phone transmitters. I agree that water cooling is a good idea to reduce noise, but this thing should be at the antenna, not on the bench. A good circulator system to protect the PA and couple the receive line is advisable. No nasty relays at this frequency.
I think you'll find you need another box/can over the amp to stop stay RF getting into wires within the box. Feed thru caps into that box maybe also needed as well - just an observation. A circulator / isolator + load is a good idea to stop you blowing it up with bad a SWR ! (watch out for arcing)
Can this amp be used for NRF24L01 module?
Just a tip aluminum is a sticky metal use a very light oil or WD40 for drilling.
Wish I had thought of that back then, would of most likely saved me breaking some drill bits. Cheers
This is interesting Matt, something I have not yet ventured into. Am I right in understanding that a heatsink dissipates heat better by mounting vertically?
There's a lot of factors, and if the PC world taught me anything, it's just to try every way until you find the best! 🙃
Even a decision about what way the fan blows with cause division, to blow up the way sucking air in along the fins, or fan blowing down the way forcing air along the fins and out
Speaking of PCs though..... you get some great prices on their stonking great CPU coolers nowadays, and some aftermarket grfx card ones are hella pretty as well as functional, maybe folks might think about using them for particularly toasty bits of equipment 🤔
Yes for passive convection, but with forced convection it's pretty much irrelevant.
Heated air flows upwards because it weighs less, if you place your heatsink horizontal heated air molecules will collide into other parts of the heatsink creating useless areas for cooling whereas vertically they can freely and constantly have their way out, all manufacturers use this technique when not using forced venting, it works exactly like your home radiator. The only drawback is if your home stereo amplifier vents upwards you'll have a nightmare cleaning dust in very dusty areas like where I live when the product is not sealed and is free to air
Looks like I can do the similar works with it as jammer??am I right
So many power for QO-100 even for DATV, I think it is better to use it for EME (moon bounce)
Hi, do you do custom work? I am looking for a fully built RF amp focused on 470-490 mhz. 3-5 watts. 12-15v dc. Do you have anything like this? Thank you, V
What ya do is bend some copper pipe in a zig zag shape to go between the heatsink fins so then ya got some water cooling aswell cause ur goin to need it ;) and btw that circulator will need a heatsink and ya better off mounting it as close to the RF PA as possible
Circulator that is being built for me has its own heatsinked 50cOhm terminator :-). And yep, I had though about doing exactly as you described with copper pipe and water cooling. We will see what happens as we progress with the build. Thanks 🙏
Thanks, Matt 😁
Its a deadly weapon in the hands of the unknown!!!
You can disolve the taps out using an alum solution
That's quite the transistor. A shame it's discontinued... 🙁
I’ll have to speak with E-Reon about that as I’ve been told that by someone else. I’m sure they have it in hand though, maybe a drop in replacement of sorts.
@@TechMindsOfficial My first thought was to have a look at the datasheet, then check price and availability through Digi-Key and Mouser. The “replacement” is a substantially different device...
I’ve been told by the supplier that they have enough stock to last way past the lifetime of the product :)
@@TechMindsOfficial Good to hear it!
As a western Canadian I won't be playing with QO-100 any time soon, but an amplifier like this is easily EME capable with a decent antenna.
Watching with interest Mat 👍
Thank you 🙏
What happened to the other amplifier? to big, exploded?
You can't get there with the standing wave with no antenna and bang there's the Klumpat
Transmit and cook dinner at the same time. 😉
Nice👍
Explains why 2.4GHz is so terrible.
"My SNR is low, must be newly installed outdoor equipment. Time to hike up the output power."
250W, wowza. With a directional dish youre making some good coverage with that 😅
Woh…. We’re getting into microwave oven territory.
They’re making solid-state microwave ovens with transistors like these.
@@marsgal42 Really? Cheaper than cavity magnetron I suppose.
@@RobertLeeAtYT Dunno. Shrug. I don't know the details. The data sheets for the high power LDMOS transistors cite microwave ovens as an application.
I really wondering if this kind of amp will kill your neighbor's WiFi???
No it doesn't when its pointed up at space :)
Do you think it will work for extending my wifi?
Too bad you can’t just wire your Tx into your microwave oven and connect the appropriate antenna to the magnetron. Then you can cook your popcorn, your neighbors wifi, and those pesky drones. Very cool
The cavities are not drilled to close enough tolerance. The frequency would rift all over the place. You'd be in and out of QO100 all the time, and you'd piss people off royally😁
@@peterbradbury784 norwich?
Great video - thank you.
You’re welcome 😉
💪✊🏼
WHY?!?
Why what? Wideband TV communication via a geostat' satellite needs power!
Transistors like this have been developed for 2.4 GHz broadcast and networking, as well as for solid-state microwave ovens.
This wants to be water cooled