This spring I plan a revamp of my tower mounted antennas. In advance of that, based on a lot of info gathered from RR, combined with the apparent unfortunately slowdown at Stridsberg Engineering, I've decided that going forward I'm going to build my own multicouplers. As has been hashed and re-hashed here with the right parts they can be built for less than the cost of the Stridsbergs and perhaps with better results.
With some of the suggestions of @prcguy and @Ubbe (and my thanks) I've been watching eBay for various devices. I had already built one 8 port multicoupler as outlined in this thread , using a PGA-103+ amp and the results have been very good. I've been looking for one of the ZHL-1010's that were mentioned in that thread. Last week I found one, albeit a 75 ohm version, and decided to give it a whirl anyway. This is the model I'm referring to. It appeared to me to have similar specs to the 50 ohm model that has SMA connectors. On its input I have a HPN-30118 30 MHz high pass/88-108 notch filter. From the output a short BNC to F cable feeds an 8 port Amphenol coaxial splitter. I'm not using the Mini Circuits 8 port splitter as referenced in my original thread as I simply couldn't find the correct one (yet) and the Amphenol splitter seems to work quite well on the PGA-103+ model I built. I don't like having to convert from F male to BNC female though so I'll continue to look for the Mini Circuits splitters. That said, on paper this "seems" to be a good balance as the overall gain of the ZHL-1010-75 is roughly 11dB across its coverage and the Amphenol splitter states -11dB out at each of its ports. All I am trying to do is overcome the loss from splitting a signal; I'm in no need of any amplification in my semi-heavy RF area. I am powering the amp from my 12VDC linear power supply system (Astron RM35A).
Thus far it appears to me to be working as well, if not better than, my Stridsberg MCA208. The ZHL-1010-75 cost me roughly $50 shipped via eBay, the splitter another $20, and I already had the filter and coax on hand. Hopefully I'll be able to find a few of the Mini Circuits splitters in question and implement them instead.
Pretty easy project, and IMHO a prudent one given the unknown future of Stridsberg. I realize the sad circumstances that may be causing them some issues. I also reached out to Cross Country Wireless twice by email about their 5 port multicoupler but never received a reply. Maybe they're no longer in business.
If you're going to try this and want the Mini Circuits splitter, you will see numerous options on eBay but the one you want is the one in the other thread, which shows the labeling of "Mini Circuits 15542 ZFSC-8-43" on the case. There are others that look exactly like it but the fine print indicates a high end of 175 MHz, or 300 MHz, obviously far below the needs of those of us in this hobby, for the most part anyway. The correct one is good to 1 GHz.
With some of the suggestions of @prcguy and @Ubbe (and my thanks) I've been watching eBay for various devices. I had already built one 8 port multicoupler as outlined in this thread , using a PGA-103+ amp and the results have been very good. I've been looking for one of the ZHL-1010's that were mentioned in that thread. Last week I found one, albeit a 75 ohm version, and decided to give it a whirl anyway. This is the model I'm referring to. It appeared to me to have similar specs to the 50 ohm model that has SMA connectors. On its input I have a HPN-30118 30 MHz high pass/88-108 notch filter. From the output a short BNC to F cable feeds an 8 port Amphenol coaxial splitter. I'm not using the Mini Circuits 8 port splitter as referenced in my original thread as I simply couldn't find the correct one (yet) and the Amphenol splitter seems to work quite well on the PGA-103+ model I built. I don't like having to convert from F male to BNC female though so I'll continue to look for the Mini Circuits splitters. That said, on paper this "seems" to be a good balance as the overall gain of the ZHL-1010-75 is roughly 11dB across its coverage and the Amphenol splitter states -11dB out at each of its ports. All I am trying to do is overcome the loss from splitting a signal; I'm in no need of any amplification in my semi-heavy RF area. I am powering the amp from my 12VDC linear power supply system (Astron RM35A).
Thus far it appears to me to be working as well, if not better than, my Stridsberg MCA208. The ZHL-1010-75 cost me roughly $50 shipped via eBay, the splitter another $20, and I already had the filter and coax on hand. Hopefully I'll be able to find a few of the Mini Circuits splitters in question and implement them instead.
Pretty easy project, and IMHO a prudent one given the unknown future of Stridsberg. I realize the sad circumstances that may be causing them some issues. I also reached out to Cross Country Wireless twice by email about their 5 port multicoupler but never received a reply. Maybe they're no longer in business.
If you're going to try this and want the Mini Circuits splitter, you will see numerous options on eBay but the one you want is the one in the other thread, which shows the labeling of "Mini Circuits 15542 ZFSC-8-43" on the case. There are others that look exactly like it but the fine print indicates a high end of 175 MHz, or 300 MHz, obviously far below the needs of those of us in this hobby, for the most part anyway. The correct one is good to 1 GHz.
