Re: Grounded grid VHF front-end

On Sat, 9 Nov 2024 20:26:18 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
(Liz Tuddenham) wrote:

Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com> wrote:
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On Sat, 9 Nov 2024 19:27:13 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
(Liz Tuddenham) wrote:
 

john larkin <JL@gct.com> wrote:
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On Sat, 9 Nov 2024 16:35:45 +0000, liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid
(Liz Tuddenham) wrote:
 

My current receiving aerial system is very inefficient at 2 metres (144
Mc/s) and I have thought about making a sleeve dipole for that band.  My
VHF receiver is an Eddystone 770R, which covers the band but only in a
small portion of the whole scale.  While I am improvomg the aerial
system, I could also make a crystal-controlled down-converter, that
would allow me to use an HF communications receiver or the lower ranges
of the 770R, so that the  band 2 Mc/s wide would cover a much greater
scale length.
>
It's been a few years since I designed anything with valves, so I
thought I might have a go at making a down-converter using valves - but
not necessarily the expensive 'cult' ones which everyone seems to regard
as having magical powers.  The EF91 is plentiful and cheap as New Old
Stock, so that seems like a good valve to start playing about with.
>
The EF91 was used as an RF amplifier in the input stages of television
sets working at about 45 Mc/s, so it can't have too bad a noise figure
(although Mullard don't quote one in their data sheet).  If I
triode-strapped it and ran it in grounded grid mode, that would reduce
the noise and increase the maximum frequency it could usefully amplify.
From the data sheet, with 200v on anode and grid 2 and an anode current
of 6mA, the gm is about 6mA/V, which gives an input impedance at the
cathode of  160 ohms.  A 75-ohm feeder could be matched to this with a
Pi tank or by tapping the L or the C of an input tumed circuit.
>
The voltage gain may not be as high in this configuration as in grounded
cathode mode, but it allows the valve to be triode strapped for low
noise without instability problems or the dependence on neutralising
that a cascode stage would have (especially the need for correct
neutralising to obtain the best noise figure).  If I also use an EF91 as
a mixer, I might need one more stage of RF gain to get the signal up to
a level where the mixer noise is negligible - but this isn't such a bad
thing because it would allow extra tuned circuits to give better image
rejection and allow a lower output frquency if I wanted one.
>
Anyone with experience of doing something like this with valves?

 
 
How about a tube/valve XO and a diode mixer to start?
 
A good HF receiver may have a low enough noise figure that atmospheric
noise still dominates.

>
Good thinking but there are several snags with that system:
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If the down-converter is at the aerial end of the feeder, the HF
receiver is almost certain to suffer from strong HF signals picked up on
the downlead.  If the down-converter is adjacent to the HF receiver,
there will be significant losses at VHF in the downlead, as the aerial
needs to be mounted as high as possible.
>
If there is no amplifier ahead of the mixing diode, the local oscillator
signal could be radiated by the aerial - especially if it happens to lie
at a frequency where the dipole has another resonance or the dipole and
downlead form a resonant system.
>
I was thinking in terms of the converter being right next to the aerial
(the sleeve dipole has a 'cold' bottom end and could be joined directly
onto the converter box).  The HT and LT could be supplied either by a
separate multi-core cable or by superimposing 40v A.C.  at 50c/s on the
co-ax and feeding it into the 200-220-240v tappings.of a mains
transformer primary.  The full primary winding would act as an
auto-transformer to give 250v H.T. and the secondary could give 6.3v or
12.6v to run the heaters.

 
This is really ham territory so I don't think JL - with all due
respect - will be able to assist you very much in this endeavour.
However, there should be tons of info on this in one of the old ARRL
handbooks. If you have any from the early 60s lying around it should
be well worth a look through.

>
I have read most of that sort of literature in the past and still have
copies of most of it but don't remember this particular approach being
used before - that was why I though it might make a good fun project.
There are some grounded-grid circuits but they use triodes intended for
the purpose.  There are cascode circuits with double (and sometimes two
single) triodes  but, again, the triodes are intended for that purpose.
The idea of using a bog-standard descendent of the ubiquitous EF50 for
frequencies it wasn't supposed to cover - and making it do that
adequately - appealed to me.
>
The only place I have come across anything like this is in Geoff
Woodburn's design for the Eddystone Panoramic Display Unit, where a
triode-strapped E180F is used as a grounded-grid untuned wideband
front-end amplifier.  I did copy that successfully with a ZTX450 as the
wideband front end of a noise-measuring set that I designed; it gave
very satisfactory results.

Seems to me that the lowest noise voltage gain - no noise in fact -
comes from a high-Q LC resonator. And that best drives a small
capacitance like a grid.

Driving a cathode can be wideband, but a cathode looks like a low
value resistor, a Q killer.