[NLRS] MGA-86576 wrap up

[w0zq at aol.com]

To close out the story, having heard from several of you, yes the MGA-86576 is past its end-of-life.  I used my last one to resolve my "dead" 2304 DEMI transverter.  For some reason I seem to pop them.  I don't know if its because of my rover set-up with closely spaced antennas on 6m through 3456 running higher-ish power, or perhaps I need sequencing as the 2304 system runs about 30 watts.  I am thinking the latter as I am using an older SMA relay for T/R and I am unsure of its isolation as well as PTT race.  

Several have pointed out the MSA-86563 is a possible replacement part.  Both devices are GaAs MMICs.  Our friends at DigiKey have stock on this part at just under $3.00 in eachs .... very reasonable.  Bad news is that the package is a SOT-363 rather than the "standard" 76 package.  The SOT-363 package is about the size of coarsely ground pepper albeit you can grab the corners as RF-in is on pin 1 and RF-out is kiddie corner on pin 4 with pins 2, 3, 5 and 6 as ground.  Both devices are biased by a 5 volt source.  At 2.3 GHz, the 86563 has about the same noise figure (1.6 dB) but about 3 dB less gain (20 dB vs 23.7).  I think that one could use one of these as a replacement part albeit you would need to figure out out to place it onto the PCB with a proper ground.  Also, the missing 3 dB may need to be made up further down the chain.  

For now I think I am going to try to figure out how to do some sequencing for that set-up.

73, Jon
W0ZQ