[NLRS] 2304?

[Lloyd - N9LB]

Hi Jerry!

Glad to hear that you will be on 2304!

There are several folks on 2304 MHz nearer to you than Chicago or Twin
Cities.  To name two, K2DRH and me.

I have the DEMI 2304 MHz 1 watt XVTR too, it drives a single Pyro Joe "75W
Spectrian Linear RF Amplifier Board".  Runs on 24 volts, I get about 25
watts output.

73

Lloyd - N9LB  EN52hv ( 10 miles South of Madison, WI )    

-----Original Message-----
From: NLRS [mailto:nlrs-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Dr. Gerald N.
Johnson
Sent: Wednesday, December 28, 2016 8:20 PM
To: Microwave List <microwave at mailmanlists.us>; NLRS Reflector
<NLRS at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: [NLRS] 2304?

I brought home the 2304 1 watt DEMI transverter from MUD in October. I
haven't yet fired it up. Been working on antenna ideas some with a 2x3 ft
WiFi skeleton reflector including variations on K4QF's log period feed that
I published in the proceedings for CSVHF and MUD this year. 
There is still work to be done there.

Living 165 miles from the twin cities and at least that far from the Quad
Cities, near the Boondocks
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/22711505@N05/24151165432)
looking at the propagation data in the International Microwave Handbook and
2304 contest activity for the last couple years of ARRL contests it appears
to me that 1 watt even with 20 dB antenna gain isn't going to make those
paths work, there might be a chance of working a couple rovers from home,
but that can't run up lots of points. And aiming a 20dB gain antenna won't
be easy.

Looks like if I get on I'll need to either rove to Chicago or the twin
cities or add a PA, perhaps 50 watts to stay in the low power class in ARRL
contests. Looking at VHF conference and MUD publications for the past decade
or so, it appears the most popular PAs come from Pyro Joseph as the
Spectrian boards, single or grouped for several hundred watts output. Are
there other practical options. There was a post a few weeks ago about
another package but when I looked at the conversion article it looked almost
as easy to build from scratch as to drag the PA from 1900 to 2304. Looking
at Mouser.com I see some reasonably priced 25 to 50 watt GAN parts without
internal matching so they are good from HF to a few GHz depending on the
part. Has there been any work making them work for multiple bands? Most of
the solid state amplifier circuits I've seen are single band using shunt
capacitors and a length of line, sometimes a quarter wave as a Pi network
transformer and low pass filter. That makes them single band. I have some
hardware on hand for 902 and 1296 that it would be nice to get on too, but
no working power amps.

So what are my options for power on 2304? Used Spectrian, or pay Pyro
Joseph's price and go from there?

73, Jerry, K0CQ