Hi Everybody

I hope this isn't the wrong place to ask. if it is, please let me know
where I should post.

I have a Kenwood TS50 installed on a boat with a SGC autotuner. The
tuner is grounded to a dynaplate.

I also have a 2000watt inverter/charger built into the boat for ac power
creation from 12v batteries.

Something strange is going on and I jusr don't know where to start
trouble shooting.

When I transmit on frequencies like 14300MHZ usb, no problem.

If I transmit on 7628 LSB 100watts the FET's in my inverter blow up! As
soon as I key the mike I hear a loud pop and there goes another fet.

I've changed them twice now and since the inverter is bolted into an
awkward spot and weighs 70 pounds (it's all transformer), removing the
inverter and changing them ain't fun.

Tonight I went so far as to disconnect (as in unplug) the AC supply to
the inverter and switch it completely off. As in no LEDS lit, everything
off.

Yet as soon as I keyed the mic, POOF. The fets just blew apart.

Any thoughts as to what might be happening?

FWIW, the coax from radio to tuner runs within about 2 feet of the
inverter, the radio and tuner are powered from the batteries which power
the inverter. So the inverter and radio share Pos. and Neg.

I can only think of a few ways this might be happening:

1) Radiated signal from the coax leaking into the inverter.
2) Radiated signal passing into the inverter via the shared positive or
negative feeds.
3) Some weird ground loop issue.

I have no ideas as to how to diagnose this and trouble shoot it without
having to replace fets everytime. And that's a big job.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

I can't offer much help, but I would think that you ought to try this
with a dummy load instead of the antenna; Dummy load hooked directly to
the radio.

If nothing else, it would tell you whether you have a DC
voltage/grounding problem, or an RF problem.


Ed K7AAT

Here's what I think is happening.

On 40 meters, the path from the tuner back along the outside of the coax
to the rig is about as attractive to RF as the dynaplate, so a good
fraction of the RF current being fed to the antenna goes that way. On 20
meters, the dynaplate is relatively more attractive due to a combination
of the dynaplate impedance, antenna input impedance, and coax length, so
more goes to the dynaplate and less along the coax.

The RF current goes along the outside of the feedline to the rig, over
the outside of the rig, and into your inverter via the power leads.
There are a couple of ways you can reduce the problem:

1. Put one or more good current baluns (common mode chokes) in the coax
feedline. If you just put one in, I'd put it at the rig, to force the
current there to be minimal.
2. Put a common mode choke in the power cable to the rig. Because the
wires are pretty large, it's probably not practical to wrap multiple
turns around a single ferrite core. So get some large clamp-on cores you
can clamp over both conductors at the same time. It's likely to take a
dozen or so, or more depending on the type of ferrite. I recommend type
43, or 70-series if you can find it in clamp-on cores.
3. Apply the same kind of choke to the inverter power leads from the
battery.

What you're doing here is to create a high impedance to common mode
current along the path from the tuner to the inverter.

If you'd like a quantitative measure of how bad a problem you've got and
how effective any solution is (or if this is really the problem), get a
clamp-on ferrite core you can clamp over the coax line or the power
leads to the rig. Wind about 10 turns to make a transformer secondary
winding -- the primary will be the wire passing through the clamped
core. Connect the winding through a series capacitor of around 0.001 to
0.01 uF to a shunt diode (any small signal type will do), and then to a
voltmeter:

----| |----.----
cap |
from winding _|_ to meter
diode /\
|
-----------.----

Sorry, I'm not very good with ASCII art. . .

Clamp this onto the coax or over both power leads. The meter reading
will be approximately proportional to the amount of RF current. The
object is to minimize it.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

Newbie Ham wrote:
Hi Everybody

I hope this isn't the wrong place to ask. if it is, please let me know
where I should post.

I have a Kenwood TS50 installed on a boat with a SGC autotuner. The
tuner is grounded to a dynaplate.

I also have a 2000watt inverter/charger built into the boat for ac power
creation from 12v batteries.

Something strange is going on and I jusr don't know where to start
trouble shooting.

When I transmit on frequencies like 14300MHZ usb, no problem.

If I transmit on 7628 LSB 100watts the FET's in my inverter blow up! As
soon as I key the mike I hear a loud pop and there goes another fet.

I've changed them twice now and since the inverter is bolted into an
awkward spot and weighs 70 pounds (it's all transformer), removing the
inverter and changing them ain't fun.

Tonight I went so far as to disconnect (as in unplug) the AC supply to
the inverter and switch it completely off. As in no LEDS lit, everything
off.

Yet as soon as I keyed the mic, POOF. The fets just blew apart.

Any thoughts as to what might be happening?

FWIW, the coax from radio to tuner runs within about 2 feet of the
inverter, the radio and tuner are powered from the batteries which power
the inverter. So the inverter and radio share Pos. and Neg.

I can only think of a few ways this might be happening:

1) Radiated signal from the coax leaking into the inverter.
2) Radiated signal passing into the inverter via the shared positive or
negative feeds.
3) Some weird ground loop issue.

I have no ideas as to how to diagnose this and trouble shoot it without
having to replace fets everytime. And that's a big job.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

In article ,
Newbie Ham wrote:

1) Radiated signal from the coax leaking into the inverter.
2) Radiated signal passing into the inverter via the shared positive or
negative feeds.
3) Some weird ground loop issue.

I have no ideas as to how to diagnose this and trouble shoot it without
having to replace fets everytime. And that's a big job.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Could be any of the three paths, or more than one at once... conducted
vs. radiated is an interesting question, but perhaps a bit academic.
All of your equipment is going to be in the near field of the
antenna/ground system, I think, and so you're going to be ending up
with RF pretty much everywhere.

If I had to guess, I'd guess that your inverter may have some sort of
half-bridge / push-pull switching circuitry. The RF getting into the
system is switching both sides of the push-pull drive into conduction
at the same time (a few volts of RF on the gates of the FETs could do
it) and shorting the supply through the FETs.

The fact that the RF was able to blow the FETs with the inverter
switched off suggests to me that it may be a fairly direct, local
pickup of RF onto the gates which did the damage. With the inverter
switched off, its controller wouldn't have been driving the FET(s) at
all.

As to how to prevent it from happening again... my guess is that your
best bet is going to be to add heavy-duty RF filtering to both the DC
inputs, and the AC load, and make the invert case as RF-tight as
possible.

I'm not sure whether it'd be possible to add snubbers, ferrites, etc.
on the FET gate leads themselves to keep the RF from triggering
them... the inverter design may require driving the FETs quite fast to
achieve proper control of the voltage. Figuring this out would
require a schematic and some study of the design.

It might be worth sniffing around inside the inverter with a grid dip
meter, with the power completely disconnected and everything
unplugged. You might get lucky and find a portion of the circuitry
that's actually resonant at around the frequency at which you're
having trouble. If so, spoiling the Q of this resonance might reduce
or eliminate the problem.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

I have a Kenwood TS50 installed on a boat with a SGC autotuner. The tuner
is grounded to a dynaplate.

I also have a 2000watt inverter/charger built into the boat for ac power
creation from 12v batteries.

Something strange is going on and I jusr don't know where to start
trouble shooting.

When I transmit on frequencies like 14300MHZ usb, no problem.

If I transmit on 7628 LSB 100watts the FET's in my inverter blow up! As
soon as I key the mike I hear a loud pop and there goes another fet.
==================================
Firstly , Thank you Roy for your expert advice ; I have stored your message
for future reference.

Secondly , (Silly me) What is a 'Dynaplate' ? I am not a
boating type of person.

Frank GMøCSZ / KN6WH

Since my boat, like many is made of fiberglass, obtaining a
ground/counterpoise is a tad tricky. Steel boats don't have a problem
but glass boats do.

So what is commonly done is a dynaplate is added to the boat. It's
basically a highly conductive copper plate that is through bolted to the
hull and is in contact with the sea water under the boat. There's a stud
on the dynaplate to which you attach a copper foil coming from the tuner
ground stud.



Highland Ham wrote:
I have a Kenwood TS50 installed on a boat with a SGC autotuner. The tuner
is grounded to a dynaplate.

I also have a 2000watt inverter/charger built into the boat for ac power
creation from 12v batteries.

Something strange is going on and I jusr don't know where to start
trouble shooting.

When I transmit on frequencies like 14300MHZ usb, no problem.

If I transmit on 7628 LSB 100watts the FET's in my inverter blow up! As
soon as I key the mike I hear a loud pop and there goes another fet.

==================================
Firstly , Thank you Roy for your expert advice ; I have stored your message
for future reference.

Secondly , (Silly me) What is a 'Dynaplate' ? I am not a
boating type of person.

Frank GMøCSZ / KN6WH

Roy Lewallen wrote:
SNIP
2. Put a common mode choke in the power cable to the rig.

Because the wires are pretty large, it's probably not

practical to wrap multiple turns around a single ferrite

core. So get some large clamp-on cores you can clamp over

both conductors at the same time. It's likely to take a

dozen or so, or more depending on the type of ferrite.

I recommend type 43, or 70-series if you can find it in clamp-on cores.

3. Apply the same kind of choke to the inverter power leads from the
battery.

A source of supply of 'big'! toroids for this kind of
suppression is the deflection coil toroid from old
TV sets. Some of them are enormous! And cheap. (read - free)

I use them round the shack liberally. There is enough
ferrite in there to equal 10 small toroids. (by weight)

Cheers.
Murray vk4aok

So what is commonly done is a dynaplate is added to the boat. It's
basically a highly conductive copper plate that is through bolted to the
hull and is in contact with the sea water under the boat. There's a stud
on the dynaplate to which you attach a copper foil coming from the tuner
ground stud.
=================
Thank you for the above info. Now understanding the situation better , it
would perhaps be beneficial to have a 'tunable counterpoise' between the
transceiver ground connection and the dynaplate.
It is in fact an adjustable series tuned circuit comprising a air-spaced
capacitor and a roller coaster or switch-tapped type of variable inductor
which is tuned for minimum impedance with the aid of an integral RF current
meter ( as described by Roy ,W7EL) Tuning is done for each band by
maximising the current in the counterpoise at low power.
For the latter it is best to use a sensitive microamp meter ,its sensitivity
adjustable with a potmeter
Such a tunable counterpoise can also be used very well in a high rise
apartment where there is no good RF earth .
The end of the counterpoise is then not connected ,but since the RF voltage
can be considerable ,the free end should be well insulated.
Such a device can be home brewed ,but a version with a switch allowing for
several inductor taps is (or at least was) available from MFJ it's their
model MFJ-931 ; Artificial RF Ground.
It was (in the early 1990s ?) described in QST , by Doug DeMaw , W1FB
(sadly now SK)

I have home brewed the above type of artificial ground made with a roller
coaster inductor.
For the HF bands the inductor is to be adjustable between approx 0.9 to 43
microHenry ,with the variable capacitor being 200 -250 pF max.

Frank GM0CSZ / KN6WH

You didn't say how far away from the dynaplate the tuner was? I would
bet that you have a fairly long run with your ground lead to it as
seen in most boats where the antenna system has problems.
You need to have a very short distance between the tuner and the
ground plate, not more than a few feet. Lots of people install the
tuner close to the antenna and run a long ground lead. That is the
wrong way to go as it then allows the coax and power leads that go to
the tuner to become part of the antenna system as well as the radio
itself and its power leads, which you don't want.

Also if you operate in fresh water rather than salt water you may need
more surface area for a ground.

Sail boat or power boat?

73
Gary K4FMX

On Sat, 13 Aug 2005 22:42:52 -0400, Newbie Ham
wrote:

Hi Everybody

I hope this isn't the wrong place to ask. if it is, please let me know
where I should post.

I have a Kenwood TS50 installed on a boat with a SGC autotuner. The
tuner is grounded to a dynaplate.

I also have a 2000watt inverter/charger built into the boat for ac power
creation from 12v batteries.

Something strange is going on and I jusr don't know where to start
trouble shooting.

When I transmit on frequencies like 14300MHZ usb, no problem.

If I transmit on 7628 LSB 100watts the FET's in my inverter blow up! As
soon as I key the mike I hear a loud pop and there goes another fet.

I've changed them twice now and since the inverter is bolted into an
awkward spot and weighs 70 pounds (it's all transformer), removing the
inverter and changing them ain't fun.

Tonight I went so far as to disconnect (as in unplug) the AC supply to
the inverter and switch it completely off. As in no LEDS lit, everything
off.

Yet as soon as I keyed the mic, POOF. The fets just blew apart.

Any thoughts as to what might be happening?

FWIW, the coax from radio to tuner runs within about 2 feet of the
inverter, the radio and tuner are powered from the batteries which power
the inverter. So the inverter and radio share Pos. and Neg.

I can only think of a few ways this might be happening:

1) Radiated signal from the coax leaking into the inverter.
2) Radiated signal passing into the inverter via the shared positive or
negative feeds.
3) Some weird ground loop issue.

I have no ideas as to how to diagnose this and trouble shoot it without
having to replace fets everytime. And that's a big job.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

In article ,
Gary Schafer wrote:

You didn't say how far away from the dynaplate the tuner was? I would
bet that you have a fairly long run with your ground lead to it as
seen in most boats where the antenna system has problems.
You need to have a very short distance between the tuner and the
ground plate, not more than a few feet. Lots of people install the
tuner close to the antenna and run a long ground lead. That is the
wrong way to go as it then allows the coax and power leads that go to
the tuner to become part of the antenna system as well as the radio
itself and its power leads, which you don't want.

Also if you operate in fresh water rather than salt water you may need
more surface area for a ground.

Sail boat or power boat?

73
Gary K4FMX

On Sat, 13 Aug 2005 22:42:52 -0400, Newbie Ham
wrote:

Hi Everybody

I hope this isn't the wrong place to ask. if it is, please let me know
where I should post.

I have a Kenwood TS50 installed on a boat with a SGC autotuner. The
tuner is grounded to a dynaplate.

I also have a 2000watt inverter/charger built into the boat for ac power
creation from 12v batteries.

Something strange is going on and I jusr don't know where to start
trouble shooting.

When I transmit on frequencies like 14300MHZ usb, no problem.

If I transmit on 7628 LSB 100watts the FET's in my inverter blow up! As
soon as I key the mike I hear a loud pop and there goes another fet.

I've changed them twice now and since the inverter is bolted into an
awkward spot and weighs 70 pounds (it's all transformer), removing the
inverter and changing them ain't fun.

Tonight I went so far as to disconnect (as in unplug) the AC supply to
the inverter and switch it completely off. As in no LEDS lit, everything
off.

Yet as soon as I keyed the mic, POOF. The fets just blew apart.

Any thoughts as to what might be happening?

FWIW, the coax from radio to tuner runs within about 2 feet of the
inverter, the radio and tuner are powered from the batteries which power
the inverter. So the inverter and radio share Pos. and Neg.

I can only think of a few ways this might be happening:

1) Radiated signal from the coax leaking into the inverter.
2) Radiated signal passing into the inverter via the shared positive or
negative feeds.
3) Some weird ground loop issue.

I have no ideas as to how to diagnose this and trouble shoot it without
having to replace fets everytime. And that's a big job.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.


Sounds like you got this problem nailed Gary.... I would suspect that
the RF Ground between the tuner and the radio is somewhere close to 1/4
Wave and is the Power wires to the inverter are also near 1/4 Wave for
the 40 Meter band, or maybe 1/8 Wave. A couple of good RF Type .1 uf
Caps across Inverter Power Leads, at both ends, should tame the problem,
after the RF Ground is shortened up to make it a good Low Impedance,
Wideband RF Ground.

Bruce in alaska
the Inverter
--
add a 2 before @