[TenTec] 6 meter transverter & jupiter

Dr. Gerald N. Johnson geraldj at weather.net
Mon Mar 15 09:21:42 PDT 2010


In the US there's Down East Microwave Inc, now in Florida, 
www.downeastmicrowave.com who makes fine products, both kit an assembled.

SSB Electronics in Pennsylvania www.ssbusa.com imports Swedish products. 
Then there's Kuhne Electronics (DB6NT) who makes transverters for 6m 
through at least 122 GHz in kit or assembled. 
http://www.kuhne-electronic.de/en/

These companies also sell amplifiers and preamps and sequencers.

The Tentec transverters were the lowest priced ever on the market. 
Elecraft is about the most expensive.

The Tentec transverters (I have the version with 2m IF) uses a really 
hot receive transistor, but has so much loss in using an ordinary diode 
for switching that its NF is marginal for good 6m weak signal use. But 
it works. And there are some other things that have annoyed me, 
including the fact that the transmitter stage bias depends on the drive 
level but it it was hard keyed by the station controls it has enough 
less distortion its detectable on the air. Maybe I should work on mine 
and put it up for sale, but I don't have the time right now. It would 
work better with hard keying, instead of RF sensing, and with an 
external antenna relay.

73, Jerry, K0CQ

On 3/15/2010 8:47 AM, John Graves wrote:
> As usual I waited too long and no longer are there transverter kits from
> TenTec.   It seems with any number of radios now including 6 meters that
> transverters in general are in short supply.  So what is a Jupiter owner
> to do, if selling and replacement is not agreeable.  I could only find
> two kits after a short quest.  Spectrum in England and Elecraft here.
> Anyone have any thoughts regarding either one?  Or any other for that
> matter.
>
>


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