The WA2EBY amplifier is a famous linear amplifier project published in QST in March and April 1999 by Mike Kossor WA2EBY. As this amplifier can give up to 50W out with 1W drive, it is a perfect pair for my Softrock RXTX amplifier.
The articles can be found on the ARRL-site (search for WA2EBY) and are highly recommended reading.
I have had a suitable box laying around for quite some time that was perfect for the amplifier project. I decided to go for Manhattan style construction using mainly the parts I already had in my junk-box and not order the PCBs and toroid set which are available from different sources on Ebay. In other words: a low-cost project.
The first I did was to make room for the IRF510 mosfets and two heat sinks. I drilled the holes in the aluminum box with a hole saw.
Then I made the RF-detector part (used for RX/TX) switching. It is in the upper part of the picture between the two relays.
I followed the articles and the schematics as best I could. The only alteration I did was to use 12V relays (instead of 15V) and a 7812 regulator for the relays and a 7805 regulator for the MOSFET bias instead of zener diodes. The above picture shows the power supply part. It is a rather conventional design. I addeda heat sink on the 7812 to make it handle 28V without dying on me.
I used a 1dB pad on the input (can be seen to the right of the left relay). It is probably not necessary to use a pad but it might improve the stability and provide a solid 50 Ω load for the Softrock RXTX Ensemble.
Mike Kossor recommends using teflon wire in output transformer due to the possible high temperature. I did not have that and used standard stranded wire which will probably survive just fine. I used coax cable for interconnections to and from the IRF510s.
I used 5k potmeters for the bias adjustment. The value should not be critical since it only acts as a voltate divider. The article does not specify the bias current, and different sources on the Internet recommend between 10mA and 100mA. I decided to try 60mA and used the method described in W2AEWs excellent video.
I only made one of the many low pass filters in the schematic (for the 17m/20m bands) following the instructions from WA2EBY. There is no band-switching at the moment, but there should be plenty of room for that later.
The network analyzer plot shows that the filter is far from excellent. The -3dB point is as high as 20 MHz and the 2nd harmonic frequency for 20m transmissions is only about -23dB down. It does not mean that the filter is useless, but I will change it later to a steeper filter and lower the -3dB point when I`m at it. Nevertheless, the output waveform seems nice, and an FFT analysis show that the 2nd harmonic is within legal limits.
A picture of the final assembled amplifier. The switch on the front panel is on/off. One LED indicates ON, whereas the other indicates TX.
The rear of the amplifier. I used banana jacks since I like them, they are robust and cheap. A protective diode takes care of business should I ever connect red to black.