31 March 2010

R&S NV 1/156 VHF Multi-coupler

This is one project I had stored for a long time... I got the unit some time ago and worked on it to fix some transport damage and clean it:

EB5AGV's Workbench: Rohde & Schwarz NV 1/156 VHF MULTI-COUPLER repair

But, as I said in that page, it was deaf and, suspiciously, one of the tubes, an EC80 UHF triode, measured low in the unit's own multi-meter (a great idea, BTW)

Finally, I got some EC80 spares and was able to check it. Wow!!!. This unit was manufactured in 1966 so it is 44 years old (2 more than myself, hi!). But it still works fine and, even if its noise figure is for sure higher than the modern equivalent, as it is specified from 100 to 156MHz, it is perfectly usable for FM broadcasting, monitoring air band (around 120MHz) and, of course, 2 meters ham band.

Here you have one picture of the unit, still cover less, connected to two rigs:



The multi-coupler has 5 outputs so I will add more rigs to it and use as a monitoring system.

It is great to mix old technology with 21st century rigs :-)

73 JOSE EB5AGV