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18 January 2016 | by Richard AA4OO | Share | | Leave a Comment (0)

Elecraft CP1 - A tasty RF treat

I had some time this afternoon to assemble another Elecraft mini-module kit. This time it was the Elecraft CP1 directional coupler.

Elecraft CP1 Kit

Couple what?

Ah, so if your new to this like me you might be asking what does a coupler do? Well it sorta listens in on the signal going out (forward) and reflected (back) and is able to send an attenuated sample of the signal to other devices. It attenuates the sample by either 20db or 30db depending on how you build the kit.

The 20db version is good for signals 25 watts and less so that's the way I built it. It was easy to build but my glue under the second toroid wasn't strong enough and you can see it popped up a bit. Also the Elecraft instructions had one confusing instruction concerning mounting the toroids. The instructions say "... When wound and mounted correctly, the enamel wire will emerge from the top of each core and connect to the top hole at each inductor location". Well when you wind a toroid only one of the wires can "emerge from the top of the core" while the other comes from underneath. This confused me for a minute until I finally just went on with the install. Anyway, if you're a stickler for following instructions that one may cause a moment of pause...

The switches for the two outputs forward, reflected (J3, J4) are in the up position when they are not in use. When the switch(es) are in the up position the 50 ohm 3 watt resistor(s) take the place of the switched off output. Don't disconnect an output and leave the switch in the bottom position. I'm not sure what will happen... maybe nothing, probably a bit of a mismatch on the SWR, or maybe it could be like "Crossing the streams" in Ghostbusters. Your mileage may vary.

My uses for a coupler

My old Ten-Tec Century 21 has an analog VFO dial that gives me a good guess at where I'm at but I use an external frequency counter to give me more information. I had it sorta rigged my frequency counter to sample the signal from RF leaked on the shield but I didn't really know how much power I was sending to the counter so this coupler allows it, as well as other devices, to be safely connected to the transmitted signal.

I also plan to use the coupler for IMD tests using a oscilloscope and other projects. It's handy device to have in your collection.

My confusion

I will admit I am still such an idiot when it comes to understanding how this stuff works. After I built it I was testing continuity and saw that input/output (J1, J2) both showed a short from ground to center pin on both BNC connectors. I thought I'd mis-soldered something and spent the next two hours unsoldering components and trying to trace the fault...

There was no fault. The way this thing works is a bit of mystery to me but as best I can tell it simply reverses the phase of the signal coming in one side (J1) and leaving the other (J2) and as far as continuity tests go, EVERYTHING has almost zero impedance. I'm still bewildered but it's AC not DC so my continuity tests don't mean much.

But in the end - It works

I finally just resoldered it, scratched my head and thought I'd give it a try. I connected the coupler between my radio and a dummy load and transmitted a watt and noted that the SWR on the radio was fine. Then I hooked up my frequency counter and it worked like a charm sending an attenuated signal to J3 for the frequency counter.

My MFJ watt meter doesn't seem to be all that accurate but I did a power test with it both in-line and absent. My MFJ watt meter measures 300w / 30w so it isn't very accurate at QRP levels. But I noted a slight difference in power reported when the coupler was in-line. If I had to guess by "Mark-One-Eyeball" I'd say the coupler was stealing about 1/2 watt. Maybe a bit more so that's something to consider. I'll know better once I build my Elecraft watt meter since it's accurate down to a tenth of a watt.

That's all for now

So lower your power and raise your expectations

72/73

Richard, N4PBQ

Richard Carpenter, AA4OO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from North Carolina, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

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