Any distortion of the modulating waveform causes harmonic distortion and therefore splatter. The sharper a waveform discontinuity is, the more high-level harmonic energy it contains, and that harmonic energy becomes splatter on the air. This is why a low-pass filter is used in speech clipping systems. But the sharp clipping caused by overmodulation can not be filtered at the audio level.
The extreme sharpness of clipping resulting from overmodulation is the reason that overmodulation causes so much splatter. The idea of the diode loading system is to produce a softer clipping that produces much less splatter than raw overmodulation. Additional diodes and resistors are often added to provide protective loading for the modulator on negative peaks that would have been unloaded in simple diode systems or with no diodes at all. This protective loading reduces voltage spikes that can destroy the modulation transformer. Some distortion is still produced with the diode loading system, and therefore some splatter will result. But unless there is some other problem, the splatter is much less severe than raw overmodulation, and the high frequency products caused by this action can be filtered at the audio level. You can add a high level splatter filter, although that will limit your high frequency response. You can have a few filters or a few filter settings, like 10 KHz for clear conditions, 6 KHz for intermediate conditions, and 3.5 KHz for crowded conditions. Some technical problems can cause extra splatter. If the modulator is marginally stable, it is possible that the dynamic change in loading resulting from the diode action can cause triggered parasitics at specific points on the audio waveform. This can result significant splatter, and it might have a distinctive resonant sound, which you would hear as resonances or concentrated spectral points in the splatter on a sideband receiver tuned some distance from the carrier. Negative feedback can cause problems if gain and phase margins are exceeded, which often happens at frequency extremes, and this can result in triggered parasitics even if diode loading is not used. If there is a modulator stability issue at high audio frequencies, it can cause splatter. Excessive modulation of the screen grid of a plate-modulated tetrode or pentode modulated stage can cause sharp distortion too. You can see a kink at about 85% negative when this occurs, and that means you have a waveform discontinuity that can cause significant splatter that can not be filtered at the audio level. The typical circuit of the screen dropping resistor going to modulated B+ should be modified for better linearity. A good job can be done by simply connecting the top of the screen dropping resistor to unmodulated B+ and allowing the screen grid to self-modulate, but the best arrangement uses a resistive divider supplying the screen from modulated B+ and unmodulated B+. Screen-choke systems are self-modulating and do not exhibit that distortion. Class C Optimization for Ultra Low Distortion http://www.amfone.net/AMPX/71.htm The self-modulated screen grid http://www.amfone.net/AMPX/98.htm Remember also that your receiver can be listening to a really strong signal while you are testing in the shack. The splatter that you hear on that strong signal in the shack may be mild on a normal signal on the air, and the receiver can be adding to the problem is it is overloading. Bacon, WA3WDR ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brett gazdzinski" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "'Discussion of AM Radio'" <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 8:22 AM Subject: RE: [AMRadio] Negative Loading circuits - good, bad, or ? > Dennis, > > > > I've had good results with the "three diode" circuit too. Earliest > > reference to the scheme I can find is in QST, October 1956 > > using 866 rectifiers. > > Covered again in ER #3, July 1989, this time with solid state > > diodes. > > I did not say I had good luck with the circuit, although it looks > like it works on the scope, and on the mod monitor, it results > in a very wide signal. Not much point in running it if you go > 50Kc wide... > > > > > > Don't believe the type of diodes used would have any > > significant effect on > > this. Splatter is generated in the PA tank circuit when > > plate voltage is > > suddenly cut off on the audio negative half cycle. Same > > splatter would be > > produced if the PA was being fed straight off the secondary > > of the mod transformer. > > The 3 diode circuit is supposed to prevent the plate voltage > from going to zero. I use variacs on the power supply so I can set > the point at which the circuit starts working, and no matter if I > set it to 95, 90, or 85% I get splatter if the audio would exceed > 100% negative, so the circuit seems to do no good. > > It LOOKS like it works, I get current in the negative cycle loading > circuit, mod monitor shows the limiting working, scope looks ok, > the signal just gets REAL wide, no matter what rig I run. > > Everyone would assume it works, I did, till I got reports I was real wide > and dug out the spectrum analyzer... > > Perhaps the very high frequency stuff gets past the circuit? > I should run some tests... > > > Brett > N2DTS > > > > > Dennis D. W7QHO > > Glendale, CA > > __________________________________________________ ____________ > AMRadio mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/amradio > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.html > Post: mailto:[email protected] > AMfone Website: http://www.amfone.net > AM List Admin: Brian Sherrod/w5ami, Paul Courson/wa3vjb >
