First power-up and sucessful test of my 8200!
Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2017 12:11 am
I know, what is an "8200"? That is what I'm currently calling my marriage of the new 8000DLE board with my old 200D PA/Filter board. I just got to a point in the new chassis build today where I could mount both boards and interconnect them. Powered the system on and it worked! Had just one problem and that was with Alex. I Found that you can NOT run with the Alex button enabled (firmware control). You must turn it off and operate in manual mode to get the filters switching correctly. Other than that, everything seems to work fine so far. I haven't tested everything yet, obviously, but will over the coming days. More chassis work still to do to get everything connected and attached to its new home.
The only thing I added was a 6db attenuator between the 8000DLE board and the 200D PA board (J3 to J2 on 200D board) to knock the 2 watt output down to 0.5 watts as it goes into the 200D board. With this installed, power trimming was very close to what it was with the original 200D transceiver board. This was a small SMA attenuator that I screwed on the 8000DLE board.
All functions seem to work fine with the same connectivity as it was with the 200D originally. PureSignal (external with coupler fed into the bypass connector) works as well and a quick 2 tone test on 17m at 30 watts out showed third order IMD down about 62 db or so. This is close to what I was getting before the 8000DLE board was used so I imagine it is a function of the old 200D PA.
When I'm finished with this project, I'll rename this to an "8256" depicting the marriage of the 8000DLE, the 200D, and its new home, an original Icom 756 cabinet and front panel with all knobs, switch, and buttons active and controlling the software! I purchased the donor 756 a long time ago and the display died some years later. It sat on my shelf for years until I had the idea to gut it, build a new chassis for it, and tie in the front panel functions to my Anan. I'll use an Arduino Mega to feed all the buttons and switches to and it will output CAT commands to the Anan software.
One other thing. You have to tell the software you are running a 200D. Telling it you are running an 8000DLE won't work with the 200D PA/Filter board. I thought this is what was going to be required but did confirm it with testing.
Lots of work left to do before the project is finished but this was a major milestone. If anyone is thinking about using the new 8000DLE board with their existing older Anan PA/Filter board, it will work; at least with a 200D rev 24 board. I suspect it will work with the older boards as well as with the 100D too.
73,
Joe W4WT
The only thing I added was a 6db attenuator between the 8000DLE board and the 200D PA board (J3 to J2 on 200D board) to knock the 2 watt output down to 0.5 watts as it goes into the 200D board. With this installed, power trimming was very close to what it was with the original 200D transceiver board. This was a small SMA attenuator that I screwed on the 8000DLE board.
All functions seem to work fine with the same connectivity as it was with the 200D originally. PureSignal (external with coupler fed into the bypass connector) works as well and a quick 2 tone test on 17m at 30 watts out showed third order IMD down about 62 db or so. This is close to what I was getting before the 8000DLE board was used so I imagine it is a function of the old 200D PA.
When I'm finished with this project, I'll rename this to an "8256" depicting the marriage of the 8000DLE, the 200D, and its new home, an original Icom 756 cabinet and front panel with all knobs, switch, and buttons active and controlling the software! I purchased the donor 756 a long time ago and the display died some years later. It sat on my shelf for years until I had the idea to gut it, build a new chassis for it, and tie in the front panel functions to my Anan. I'll use an Arduino Mega to feed all the buttons and switches to and it will output CAT commands to the Anan software.
One other thing. You have to tell the software you are running a 200D. Telling it you are running an 8000DLE won't work with the 200D PA/Filter board. I thought this is what was going to be required but did confirm it with testing.
Lots of work left to do before the project is finished but this was a major milestone. If anyone is thinking about using the new 8000DLE board with their existing older Anan PA/Filter board, it will work; at least with a 200D rev 24 board. I suspect it will work with the older boards as well as with the 100D too.
73,
Joe W4WT