Probably just best to leave it as doesn't look like it's damaged, just got a bit hot.

teckniqs wrote:Probably just best to leave it as doesn't look like it's damaged, just got a bit hot.

Yea it does look like it's just been over heated it's just the plastic red jacket will do no harm thought.

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I expect it was either caused by a bad SWR or excessive power.

teckniqs wrote:I expect it was either caused by a bad SWR or excessive power.

Yea it's maxed for 200 Watts if he has put it above that then yup could have been the issue. And along side the bad swr would not help either. I've yet to fire this up to test it on mfj259c analyser. I've no idea what frequency it's set for I'll soon find out when I throw it up.

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The 5/8 wave I've got is 5 feet 9 which is is set for 97mhz no a bad swr thought.

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I would recommend you read this page before considering an antenna from pcs
https://www.fmbroadcastantenna.com/exte ... tenna.html

Another thing I have heard about pcs and I don't know if they still do this, they have been known to scrub markings off finals, and then insist that the board is sent back to them for repair when the final needs replacing. It's possible to work out which final may have been used, by narrowing it down from the package, output power, supply voltage, and output/input matching impedance's etc... this is time consuming work.

They do, unfortunately.

We had one of their 400W "Cybermax" things on the bench a while ago. It was pretty inside - Marko has spent plenty of money on getting the PCBs to look good. He's also very competent when it comes to the software controls for his products. Unfortunately, his gear doesn't match up to the specifications he claims on his website.

On his site, he claims "Harmonics >-60dB" - it certainly attains that - the second was -36dBc and the third was -39dBc - hardly stellar performance - it's like the lowpass filter on the output isn't working! There were also plenty of in-band spurs around the (nominal) carrier frequency. These would have wiped out local reception over much of the band - they were not huge, but would certainly prevent this device being used in a populated area. Each of the harmonics was also surrounded by a forest of little spurs.....

The unit was meant to deliver 400 Watts when turned up to maximum (he claims that this may be ±10%). We got around 285 Watts out of a factory-fitted PA device that's rated at 250 Watts......

The stereo coder isn't too good - the distortion (he claims 0.1%) was horrible, with all sorts of nasty artefacts from the audio lowpass filtering. The "built-in limiter" doesn't actually limit - it compresses with a moderately high ratio, but allows overshoots, and isn't good enough to be used as a protection limiter (a pair of back-to-back diodes would do a better job!).

Marko's spent his money on making the things look pretty to the uninformed. You would hope that - at the price he's charging - the unit would work properly. It was very disappointing. The owner of the thing returned it to Slovenia and requested refund of the equipment price and carriage. I don't know if he's been refunded yet.

Against our advice (we hoped to make a sale!), he bought what turned out to be a really nice Korean-built rig rated at 500 Watts. He has separate audio processing and stereo coder, so his transmitter plant is now 6U high instead of 2U, but the gear works flawlessly. He ended up paying slightly more for his equipment, but it now fully conforms to the local broadcast specification, sounds good on the air, and can broadcast without causing local interference (apart from overloaded receivers, of course!). I've been invited down there when this damn "lockdown" finishes, so I have a nice trip to the Far East to look forward to next winter!

Pcs almost need their own thread , thanks Albert for the extra insight, I was shocked when I saw the antenna fake article, I bet people feel very cheated to find out they don’t have the original and have inferior products at inflated prices. I’m sure they are good for some stuff, but makes you second guess everything website now

Also:
Beware of DMR Electronics in the Netherlands. They re-sell PCS gear at incredibly inflated prices.

They're also trying to sell 10W rigs for "Drive-In Cinema" use! The last Drive-In job I did used 80mW out of the rig into a dipole, with stereo and RDS. It covered the field that they were using and a couple of hundred metres around the area. It was ideal. It was easily received on all car radios. I can't imagine a need for more than a couple of hundred milliwatts at most!

Yeah i agree you wouldn’t need that sort of power for drive in cinema, still, I’m sure some people will end up falling foul of these places/prices , alright if what your getting is for broadcast use and of a quality that matches its price, but most people will show what they think of inflated prices with their feet and go elsewhere.

Here’s my new exciter, this will beat the pcs exciters by far - no in band noise and harmonics are -70dBc. Phase noise -115dBc/Hz at 10KHz offset.

PLL reference is a TCXO temperature compensated

Power output is 10W variable, this provides enough drive for multiple pallets combined together for big power.

LCD will also give you the forward and reverser power, swr, and also the deviation.

Modulation is DC coupled and is linear and flat from 30Hz to 57KHz.

nrgkits.nz wrote:Here’s my new exciter, this will beat the pcs exciters by far - no in band noise and harmonics are -70dBc. Phase noise -115dBc/Hz at 10KHz offset.

PLL reference is a TCXO temperature compensated

Power output is 10W variable, this provides enough drive for multiple pallets combined together for big power.

LCD will also give you the forward and reverser power, swr, and also the deviation.

Modulation is DC coupled and is linear and flat from 30Hz to 57KHz.

402406B1-9875-4F61-AA99-775D024892B7.jpeg

Looks OK. But hoping your not going to make that as a kit for building they smd chips are annoying to solder in I Ken you use solder paste but still annoying lol. I prefer through hole chips

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nrgkits.nz wrote: ↑Fri Jul 24, 2020 2:17 pm Here’s my new exciter....
.
Power output is 10W variable.

How is it variable, by what means, is there a memory of the last power out setting ?

I’m getting a run of boards assembled by a local assembly place here on pick and place machine - I’ll be busy this weekend reeling the components ready for them to load along with the panels.

The output power is set using an onboard trimmer, and is monitored by an AGC circuit. It will stay on the power level you set it at, and will not drift up and down with temperature.

nrgkits.nz wrote: ↑Fri Jul 24, 2020 11:35 pm The output power is set using an onboard trimmer, and is monitored by an AGC circuit. It will stay on the power level you set it at, and will not drift up and down with temperature.

Thanks for the info...

Monitored by an AGC circuit = Good
Will stay on the power level you set it at = Good
Will not drift up and down with temperature = Good
But... A bit more info please
Can it go from 0 - 100% ?
Instead of the trimmer could I bring out three cables from the board to an external pot ?

Thanks

Electronically wrote:Middle coil and loading coil same, as yours technics bottom part.

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This antenna is actually a 3/4 wave not a 5/8 wave I don't know how they class them as 5/8 waves antennas.

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nrgkits.nz wrote: ↑Fri Jul 24, 2020 11:35 pm The output power is set using an onboard trimmer.

A bit more info please

Can it go from 0 - 100% ?
Instead of the trimmer could I bring out three cables from the board to an external pot (is it DC controlled) ?

Thanks

BriansBrain wrote: ↑Mon Jul 27, 2020 1:05 pm

nrgkits.nz wrote: ↑Fri Jul 24, 2020 11:35 pm The output power is set using an onboard trimmer.

A bit more info please

Can it go from 0 - 100% ?
Instead of the trimmer could I bring out three cables from the board to an external pot (is it DC controlled) ?

Thanks

Not quite 0% but close enough, it will got from about 50mW up to 10W. You could bring out three cables if you wanted, however you would first need to de-solder the SMT trimpot and then solder your three cables to the tiny solder pads. It's DC controlled. I would recommend just leaving it as it.