[NLRS] Power on 5760 MHz

[tosca005 at umn.edu]

My 5760 transverter is an older 10 mW Down East Microwave model. I have a 
few options for boosting the power up to a more competitive level, but 
while browsing the listings on eBay, I came across a few items that looked 
appealing to me and might interest other folks in the same boat as I:

Item 400182916307, a pair of PC boards for a RFMD/Sirenza 4.9-5.9GHz 1Watt 
SZA-5044Z RF MMIC Power Amplifier in 4mmx4mm QFN Package -- $11.99 for the 
pair, has "more than 10 available", has sold 110 of them so far.

Item 260605336283, a package of 5 of the MMIC chips that fit on the above 
boards -- $13.99 for the set of 5, 3 sets available, 5 sold so far.

These would provide about 22 dbm maximum output power at 5760 MHz, so a 
noticeable bump from 10 mW (10 dbm), but still pretty low. So why bother? 
Because the next item below needs 18 dbm in to produce a pretty healthy 5 
watts or 37 dbm of output power.

Buy 5 of the board sets and 2 of the MMIC sets and you could build 10 
boards... Strange choice of grouping the sales if you ask me. And of 
course, you would need to add the various chip caps, chip resistors, chip 
inductor, and SMA in and out connectors, and be comfortable with surface 
mount components (which I'm not). But could be a group project if a number 
of people wanted assembled boards and someone in the group wanted to tackle 
it for those of us less adept at assembling microwave components...

Then, I also saw the following item that would nicely complement the above 
pre-driver boards to bring them up to a genuine 5 watt level:

Item 250983172827, a 4.8-6.7 GHz 5W Power Amplifier M/A-com MAAPGM0060 -- 
from the spec sheets, it appears that 18 dbm in would give the 37 dbm (5 
watt) output that the part is capable of generating, and since the prior 
item could provide up to 22 dbm, it seems that 5 watts from 10 mW is 
doable. Unfortunately this last item is selling for $120, whereas the prior 
ones are priced low enough to entice me to experiment. As far as I can 
tell, this item is just the module itself, so a board would need to be 
created to use it.

Anyone want to offer comments on these items? Or is everyone else already 
at power levels above a watt or 5 on this band?

73 de W0JT/5