Elecraft has released pictures and preliminary specs of their new KXPA100 100 watt external amplifier with built in KXAT100 auto tuner.
The amplifier is designed to be used with any QRP rig, including their own KX3, the Yaesu FT-817, Icom 703, and others.
Front:
Back:
Here are the preliminary specs direct from Eric Swartz:
- 100 W Output on all bands, 160 m to 6 m; 4 W Input for 100W Out typical
- Modern Design with MOSFET Output Stage
- Solid State diode T/R Switching — supreme fast and silent T/R and QSK
- 13.8V nominal DC Powered. No moving parts (no fan required)
- One RF input, 1 or 2 ANT outputs. (2nd ANT output with internal ATU option.)
- LED Bar-graphs for power, status and SWR (with the internal ATU option).
- KXPA100 works with any rig with just AMP KEY and RF. The internal freq counter auto band switches.
- The KXPA100 Integrates... [Read More]
Here's an interesting project in the works: A GMSK board that mounts right on a Raspberry PI to turn the $35 computer into a self contained D-Star adapter for your analog radio.
If you're unfamiliar with the Raspberry PI, it's a small, inexpensive linux computer:
KI6ZUM is working on this project, as well as a sister version that would bring a GMSK board to the Arduino PC.
Here is a pic of the GMSK board mounted on the GPIO port of the Raspberry PI:
About a week ago, Brick O'Lore alerted me to the fact that many people have discovered that the little TYT TH-UV3r can do 220Mhz in addition to the standard 2m/440. Enabling this feature requires the use of the programming cable and software and is simply enabled by checking the 220 band in the setup menu and entering the desired range:
I tested this tonight and it worked! Unfortunately my battery was nearly dead so I couldn't give the radio a good power test, but I'll post that info tomorrow.
This is cool - one of my favorite little radios now does 144/220/440 mhz!
All of these units are advertised as having isolation of better than -75db, which isn't too bad for a unit in the $100 price range. Well, I had a reason to change the frequency range mine is tuned for and thanks to Daryl, N6DTO I can honestly say that the numbers are a lot better than advertised. Check out this analyzer plot showing the unit tuned for -96db isolation on the upper frequency! That's pretty impressive!
