[hpsdr] Penelope-PennyWhistle initial operation

[AA8K73 GMail]

Thank you for your response John, I appreciate it.


I've been working with another nice guy off-list, with 
suggestions and measurements.  Late last night I discovered a 
wiring error on T2.  This morning I put a new winding on and my 
PennyWhistle works fine.  The output is 15.7 watts.


I just found my second Penelope and tested the output.  Same 
value.  About 0.2 watts.

The Penelope manual, the OpenHPSDR Penelope web page, and TAPR 
web page all say that Penelope is 0.5 watt.  I was wondering if 
I had done something wrong.

Although I worked VP2MAC on CW with Penelope using a vertical 
antenna.   :)

I didn't use insulators on Q1 and Q2, I just bolted them 
directly to the PennyWhistle heatsink.

Based on your experience John, I think that I run PennyWhistle 
at a max of 10 watts.

Thanks again John.


Now, on to winding my Munin transformers...


Mike - AA8K


On 4/13/19 17:39, radio at netins.net wrote:
> Lurking and listening to the April 12 Team Speak I heard you had 
> still not heard about your inquiry.
> I built a Penny Whistle to use with my Hermes and I don't have 
> experience with other exciters.
> Please see my comments below.
> 
> On 2019-04-10 8:19 pm, AA8K73 GMail wrote:
>> ***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List 
>> *****
>>
>> The lust for high power has called me and I'm connecting my
>> PennyWhistle to my Penelope for the first time.  I not seeing 
>> gain out
>> from PennyWhistle.
>>
>>
>> The Penelope is an original TAPR.  I made the T2 modification to
>> rotate the output transformer.
> 
> <<<< When I put the Penelope output into a
>> dummy load, and PowerSDR Tune set to 100, I see 9.5 volts 
>> peak-to-peak
>> across the 53 ohms.>>>
> 
> The exciter output of 9.5 v p-p (about 3.4 V RMS) is roughly 1/5 
> Watt.
> I have never measured the output of my Hermes, but as I recall 
> it is rated at about 200 mW.
> This should be enough to get power out of Penny Whistle.
> 
> I was never able to get the published power output from my Penny 
> Whistle, but this may have been due to my lack of attention at 
> carefully winding the binocular output transformer.
> 
> I set the bias on my Penny Whistle for SSB use, but used it for 
> CW and digital modes.  The output of Penny Whistle is run 
> through ALEX and to the load (antenna or dummy load)  On 6m I 
> can only get 5W output as indicated in HPPower SDR.  The most 
> output was about 17 W on 30m.
> 
> My Penny Whistle failed and I replaced both output transistors 
> to restore operation.  Before replacing the output transistors I 
> used a piece of plate class and fine emery cloth to flatten the 
> heatsink surface.  New insulators were used with the transistors 
> that were replaced.  When operation was restored I did not 
> notice any improvement over the original power.  It worked for 
> many, many hours until we changed homes.  Since then, I have not 
> put up any antennas other than a temporary 2m antenna.
> 
> To obtain the output powers on my Penny Whistle I never have had 
> to use the full amount of drive indicated in HPPowerSDR.
> Based upon what you have posted and my experience with Penny 
> Whistle, I think something is definitely wrong with Penny 
> Whistle or the way it is being used.
> 
> I would check and then check again the coax cables and T/R 
> wiring. Also, you should have some sort of filtering on the 
> output of Penny Whistle.
> 
> Finally, look into the settings in HPPowerSDR.  You may have to 
> change a setting there.  I made screen captures of my settings 
> to reduce chances for setup errors when updates were installed.  
> If you would like to see my settings, let me know.
> 
> John,  W0GN
> 
> 
> 
>>
>>
>> 1.  Is this normal output for the Penelope?
>>
>>
>> When I put PennyWhistle on Penelope, the voltage to the dummy 
>> load is
>> 3 volts peak-to-peak.  I even manually grounded the 
>> PennyWhistle bias
>> control in case there was a problem with Penelope's PTT-out.
>> PennyWhistle's 13.6 volt power increases about 1 ampere when 
>> the bias
>> control is grounded.
>>
>>
>> Any hints for troubleshooting?
>>
>>
>> Mike - AA8K
>>
>> Metis 3.0
>> Mercury 3.4
>> Mercury/2 3.4
>> Penny(Lane) 1.8
>> PowerSDR OpehHPSDR mRX PS v3.3.8 (6/9/16)
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