We need more power Scotty!

Well +15dBm (~30mW) is all very good if you really enjoy true QRP but being as power mad as the next Canberrian I thought I would go all out and get myself a broadband linear for the HackRF. I wanted cheap and cheerful so for the moment I've settled on the MGA31189 based EME162 module from MiniKits. This kit is only AUD $24.70 without SMA connectors. Please ignore my very rough test leads in the photo!

MGA31189 +24dbM broadband driver

This kit is a +24dBm (250mW) broadband driver advertised as operating from 50MHz to 2GHz. You can build it - using supplied components - as a TX driver with onboard 5 or 10dB attenuator or as a second stage RX amp. I built mine with the 5dB input attenuator (right to left in the photo). Again a nice kit from Mark even if he accidentally forgot to include the 78M05 voltage regulator! A quick email and they will be in the mailbox soon enough. I already had some in the shack so it didn't slow me down.

Gain is quoted at about 21dB with a current draw of ~90mA. I only had time to do a very (very) quick test yesterday afternoon but the module looks very flat from about 70MHz to upwards of 2.6GHz. I got the following preliminary results with an input power of 2.75dBm (max on the HP generator) into the 5dB attenuator:

• 50MHz 16dBm
• 100MHz 18.2dBm
• 150MHz 19.1dBm
• 250MHz 19.3dBm
• 438MHz 19.1dBm
• 800MHz 18.9dBm
• 1290MHz 18.7dBm

So that's very close to the stated 21dB of gain. More tests to follow.