Topband
[Top] [All Lists]

TopBand: Beverages - tuning transformers

To: <topband@contesting.com>
Subject: TopBand: Beverages - tuning transformers
From: leewells@lexmark.com (Lee Wells)
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997 23:26:54 -0500 (EST)
de KT4ZX - Lee Wells - leewells@lexmark.com

Hey everybody....thanks for all the info.  A lot of varying
recommendations, but one common one was to test out the
transformers.

So when I got home tonight I pulled the transformer box inside
and took it apart.  Oh yeah....first I meant to check the SWR on
the Inv-L, but had the antenna switch in the wrong position.  It
appears that I only fried a 50 ohm resistor in the beverage
box that I was switching in to the unused port.  The toroids
& relays seem fine.

So on to the testing.  I first started testing out the
forward transformer (shown as T2 in ARRL Ant HandBook and ON4UN's
book, the one that is fed from the center tap on T1).

I unsolderd the two signal leads, leaving the other two leads
attached to ground.  (I know, I should have wound it with one
piece of wire and then tapped up a few turns from one end,
but I cut the wire too short so I had to but a second winding
on the toroid for the primary)  I put a 1K pot on one the hi-Z side, 
and attached the lo-Z side to the noise bridge.  Here are the 
resistances that I found the best noise dips over a range 
of frequencies:

freq    pot     noise bridge
1.85    577        56
3.8     637        55
6.0     740        49
7.1     926        40

This seemed a little off since I had calculated the beverage impedance
to be 407 ohms.  And I wound the transformer to match 407 to 50 ohms.
So I decided to go ahead and pull the toroid off the board
so I could take a few turns off of the hi-Z side.

I took about 4 or 5 turns off and the new readings are:

freq    pot     noise bridge
1.85    715        90
3.8     721        90
6.0     778        92

But this time I didn't tie the grounds together....I noticed that
when I do, the numbers drop on both sides. (1.85 droped to 646/80)

So my main question is how do I interpret this data???  The impedance
ratio is about right now to match 400 ohms to 50 ohms.  Another
big question, is why can't I get a good dip with a setting of 50
ohms on the noise bridge???  Am I doing something fundamentally wrong
that causes the readings to be off??

Thanks again & 73's
        --Lee - KT4ZX


--
FAQ on WWW:               http://www.contesting.com/topband.html
Submissions:              topband@contesting.com
Administrative requests:  topband-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems:                 owner-topband@contesting.com
Sponsored by:             Akorn Access, Inc. & N4VJ / K4AAA

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
  • TopBand: Beverages - tuning transformers, Lee Wells <=