Thanks, Don, as I suspected (kind of).
Of course in CW PEP=carrier power and makes
sense. I never really *asked* this question
before as I always had nice reports on my
SSB. Gives me confidence running my new
*expensive* LDMOS kilowatt amps on 144 and 1296
plus my old-school 16 NLA transistor Harris on
50-MHz when running SSB. Mostly run them "full
bore" with either CW or digital on eme, where PEP
is approx equal to carrier power.
The 144 and 1296 amps are new and not yet QRV
(but soon). I will sell my 2m W6PO-8877 with
HVPS when this is accomplished. Passing of an
era to "no-tube" operation which started 60 years ago with a DX-35 (6146).
73, Ed - KL7UW
At 02:52 AM 4/23/2018, Don Wilhelm wrote:
Ed,
The power you request with the power knob is the
PEP level that the K3 will control. That is regardless of mode.
The K3 compensates for the mode automatically.
The same should be true of the transverter output.
73,
Don W3FPR
On 4/23/2018 4:56 AM, Edward R Cole wrote:
Since the K3 operates so differently (than
traditional radios) for proper modulation I thought I'd ask this:
In olden days amplifiers were rated in PEP
typically as 2x average (or CW) power, so for
AM one had to set carrier at 1/4 full carrier
output to stay linear. (1/2 carrier for SSB).
But now I am setting up a 600w linear amp to
run at P1 which is about 0.9 of P3 (saturated
power) and wondering what level of carrier
power to run in SSB to stay linear and also not
to overdrive and stress the expensive LDMOS device in the amplifier.
I'm running the K3 in transverter mode on
28-MHz so max output is 1.5mw. I can view
this with a scope. The amplifier is running
at 1296-MHz which is too high a freq to monitor
with my scope. I can only observe average RF
power from a directional coupler and diode detector (like a Bird meter).
Normally, I just set power on the K3 to drive
my amp to nominal full power and select SSB
mode. Modulation level is set by observing
ALC meter. I is ALC showing five bars when
saying the word "five" loudly and six bars with
compression. So does this mean the K3
automatically adjusts RF power in SSB to stay
linear with proper modulation audio setting?
My reason is when running 1296 SSB to avoid
overdriving the amplifier into P3 possibly
causing harm, as much as not wanting to produce non-linear products.
73, Ed - KL7UW
http://www.kl7uw.com
Dubus-NA Business mail:
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