Vevtor Wattmeter Sharing Device

Ed Johnson

I am working on a 4 port antenna selection device that works with SmartSDR using a Flex Smart USB cable and automatically switches your LP100A/500/700,PowerMaster or any other high end SWR bridge/vector analyzer betweenn any one of up to 4 antenna ports on your HF Amplifier.  This allows you to make use of the high end analyzer without having to manually switch antenna cables.  It takes bcd instructions from the Flex and places the analyzer into the correct antenna path.  I am curious to see what the interest level is.  I am deploying it at my station now.  It supports full legal power.  Let me know if there is interest.  It will be priced reasonably.

[Deleted User]

I have a Ham Plus Switch that already does that here in the shack.

WK2Y

I don't have an amplifier (yet) but I do have three antennas and would love to switch my LP700 more easily between them.  If it would work for that, I would be interested.
73,
Bob, WK2Y

Mark_WS7M

Ed,

I'd be interested.  I have LP700 and SPE 2K amp but I also use a PalStar HF Auto tuner which only has 2 antenna outs.

It is sad because my amp has 6 outs, but due to some of my tuning requirements I need the Palstar tuner.   

So my SWR pickoff devices are one at the back of the 6600 and one at the primary antenna out on the HF Auto right now.

Ideally, a switch like you describe would allow that final SWR pickoff unit to work with more antennas if I read your post right?  Am I correct?

That would be my ultimate goal to have a really nice controllable switch that I feed the last SWR pickoff device into that would let me select more antennas.

The BCD sounds good but my hope is you would add a network port and allow this device to receive a network command to change antennas.

Steven WA8Y

Yes, I'm interested.

Ed Johnson

To all those interested.  This is intended to be a simple to use device and relatively inexpensive compared to the alternatives.  Please email me the number of feedlines you would need to use for your wattmeter and the bands used on each feedline. (Keep in mind that I am focused primarily on 160-6m to keep the number of ports to something manageable while looking to support as many different applications as possible.  My goal is to do this with only  a small 12VDC source and one usb cable to the rear of the Flex.  No Cat, no Ethernet.... all configured from within the SmartSDR as it exists today. (At least that is my goal)  Please email to ed@w2ph.com  

Chuck

If you are using an LP-500 or LP-700, they have four (4) inputs for up to four power/SWR couplers and can be set to auto-switch to the coupler that is active.  Of course, you need to purchase the additional couplers, but they can then be optimally placed wherever needed in the shack using CAT6 cable from the couplers to the LP-500/700.

Ed Johnson

Yes, Bob, it will work on a Flex barefoot or with any amp.

Ed Johnson

Mark, It should work in the application you describe.  At this time we are not looking at anything network based. 

Ed Johnson

If you want to buy all those couplers..... :-)

Ed Johnson

Progress report... The Vector wattmeter sharing device prototype is up and working.  It also allows you to steer an outboard tuner to one of four antennas.  I should have it in production in a few weeks.  Let me know if you are interested and I will keep you posted. 

There are many other ways to do this as you can see in the comments, but none for under $200 and most require multiple couplers at considerable expense to use with 4 antennas.  It requires No CAT, and no ethernet connections.
Cheers,
Ed W2PH
Ed@w2ph.com

Kari Gustafsson SM0HRP

Hi, great idea. I am ON. I need to monitor 4 feed lines from a 4x8 antenna switch. 73s kari@sm0hrp.se