Ramsey Electronics manual FT146 Circuit Description

and IC chip) give the equivalent of about 130 or more transistors and diodes. And, in addition to 13 inductors, a crystal and the various plus and jacks, there are over 60 capacitors and resistors. Surely, all that should result in a decent transmitter! You could easily spend twice the money plus hours of time trying to gather the equivalent parts from catalogs and still need to make your own circuit board.

FT146 CIRCUIT DESCRIPTION

Basic overview: The FT146 is a crystal controlled FM transmitter that uses a varactor modulated crystal oscillator followed by a 9 times frequency multiplier and power amplifier. Test points are built-in for easy alignment.

Detailed description: Transistor Q1 functions as a Colpitts crystal oscillator whose frequency is determined by Y1 and varactor diode D1. Transistor Q2 functions as a buffer amplifier to isolate the crystal oscillator from other portions of the circuit. The crystal oscillator frequency is multiplied by 3 (tripled) in transistor Q3. Frequency multipliers are nothing more than amplifiers that produce lots of distortion! In this case we're interested in having enough distortion so that the third harmonic is fairly strong. We "pick-off" or filter the third harmonic with a band pass filter, comprised of L9,13 and capacitors C28,21,22,16. This allows transistor Q4 to be driven only by the third harmonic of the crystal frequency - in this case, around 48 MHz. Q4 is another tripler, multipling up the 48 MHz to 144 MHz. Inductors L5,11 and capacitors C25,17,18,10 for the band pass filter for the three times output frequency.

From here on out, we're working at the actual carrier frequency and use a couple of transistors to amplify the signal up to a 4 to 6 watt level. Transistor Q5 boosts the signal to the 250 mW range and Q6 then produces the full power output. Impedances must be matched between stages to allow for maximum power transfer, and that's the function of a couple of coils that are hand wound. A low pass filter follows the final amplifier to limit out of band signals (remember those multiplier stages?). Modulation is accomplished by varying the capacitance of varactor diode, D1. This varying capacitance shifts the frequency of the crystal ever so slightly causing a frequency shift, which is FM or Frequency Modulation. And yes - this frequency shift does get multiplied as it travels through the multiplier stages. The signal used to vary the varactor diode is our desired audio modulation. Op-amp U1 functions as a microphone amplifier, clipper and low pass filter. We clip the microphone signal to prevent overmodulation and limit the maximum modulation frequency since either one could cause our transmitter to "splash" into adjacent channels.

To make our transmitter compatible with standard ICOM/YAESU style microphones we use transistor Q7, which senses when current is being drawn by the microphone. When the mike is keyed, the current drawn turns on Q7 which applies bias to transistor Q1, allowing it to operate and thus the rig goes

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