elektor december 1974 - 41

tunable aerial amplifier

Mounting, construction and adjust-
ment
An importru1t requiremen t is that all con-
nections must be as short as possible.
Photograph I gives a clear picture of the
mounting. The FETs should have mu ch
shorter connecting leads than shown in
the photograph (about 6 mm) ; long leads
have distinclly unfavourable effects on
stability and the signal-to-noise ratio; this
was being verified when this photograph
was taken.
All capacitors, except for Cu , are of the
!ow-loss ceramic disc type. Current types
of Schottky diodes can be used for D1 and
D2 , and types BBI05A, BB105B and
BB 105G are suitable for D3 to Ds. The
coils are wound on Kaschke coil formers
type KH 5/22, 7-560-8A, with a ferrite
core, type K 3/ 12/ 100. Several other types
of coil formers might be suitable as well,
if the diameter is about l /4 in. ( 6 mm)
The ferrite core has to be a VHF-type!
The winding data are given in table 3.
The wire should preferably be silver-plated
copper wire with a diameter of 1.2 mm.
The spacing between the turns is 0 .8 mm
and is obtained simply by winding a so-
called "blind wire" of a diameter equal to
the spacing, i.e. 0.8 mm, together with
the coil wire. Once the coil has been
mounted , this blind wire is , of course, re-
moved unless the 240/300 n connections
are to be used. In that case the blind wire
is 0.8 mm enamelled copper wire, and
after mounting of the coil, this blind wire
is wound off again until the above number
of turns is left.
As the coupling coils must be placed at
the 'cold end', winding b ack takes place
from the coil end that is connected to the
varicap. This is illustrated in figure 4.
Soldering the wires to the former pins is a
time consuming job, particularly for the
wire diameter quoted here. If more value
is set upon efficient mounting than on
appearances, the coils are mounted direct-
ly in the circuit, as shown in figure 5. The
coil formers will fit only after clipping, as
can be seen in this figure. In this case the
coils are wound on a drill with a slightly
smaller diameter (about 0. 1 mm) than the
outer diameter of the coil former.
If the receiver used is not tuned by means
of varicap diodes, the aerial amplifier
should be adjusted as foll ows. Set the

Table 3.
coil tap with respect to total number
+ or -Vb of turns

L1 aerial 50/75 ,Q 2
240/300r24
5
(coupling winding)
source 2.5
L2 source 2 5
' L3 output 50/75 !1 1
240/300r22 5
(coupling coil)

R2
C2