[hpsdr] Broken Penelope - Now Fixed

[Darrell Basinger]

Many, many, thanks for Steve's suggestion. The soldering iron was hot and I 
just received new DAC's, op-amps and didoes. I was prepared to rebuild both 
penelopes or destroy them in the process.

As Steve suggested, I deleted PowerSDR and installed anew. Problem solved!!!

I had previously tried both my notebook and desktop PC's with the same low 
power result.

The new installation was the ticket, just like magic!!!

Thanks again,

73, Darrell WW4F


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Darrell Basinger
To: hpsdr at openhpsdr.org
Sent: Monday, May 10, 2010 11:07 PM
Subject: Broken Penelope


I have two Penelope exciters (1 x TAPR & 1 x Gerd / DJ8AY). Initially both 
worked fine (.5W output). However, both have recently failed (first one then 
the second) with an output of only 50 mW. Only 3 of 5 leds are on.

I have two sets of Alex, LPU, Mercury and OZY. The same low output from 
Penelope is evident using either set.

Following the troubleshooting guide on the Penelope Wiki, I measured 300 mV 
at pin 2 of JP3. If I remover the jumper I measure 600 mV. The VFWD voltage 
(pin 7 of UB9) measures 1.25 Vdc. Is this dc level too high resulting in the 
FPGA code to reduce the output? In other words, could the low output power 
be the result of a feedback condition (related to U9 or U7) causing the 
power to roll back?

I would truly appreciate any suggestions.

Darrell, WW4F