Powernumpty

I shudder to see some of the things sold now. I forcibly get to test a new one very week or two as a close neighbour buys a budget item, kids break it then buy another, worse. The other side gets a new bit of computer kit to review on the same schedule. I've become like a wine taster now - "ah PC PSU, thick odour of Corsair with DC extensions, underlying LED strips and VDSL" - absolutely revolting!

I have found the MLA-30 didn't work powered from the BBG USB port here but I had assumed that was some failure of the design rather than no supply to the port (will have to go get one and check..) .

As the power injector for the MLA has a 5V-12V step up I didn't try again seeing that as a bit of an issue for HF. If you want to use it with the boost I'd split out the 5V before the Kiwi and try it there, the other advantage of doing it that way is some filtering between the MLA boost switcher and the RF side.

Personally I would use another Bias-T and feed a linear voltage to the MLA avoiding the boost, it would probably run from a 9V battery that way.

73 Stu

Why is it not good?

I know feeding 5.3V to the Kiwi sounds a bit agricultural but I have unintentionally fed much more than that into the Kiwi (not Beaglebone direct) over an extended period without issue.
Unless you are going to use sense wires in production I'd tweak the supply up to that. A good few of those who post on the forum set the supply above ~5.2V to reduce the chances of issues caused by brown out as described in the quick start. There is DC filtering and traces before it gets passed to the BeagleBone.

Power the lambda on, tweak to 5.2-5.3V, connect only one Kiwi, report back.

I posted this to the UKQRM group.
Turns out this specific issue and charger type was mentioned in RadCom (RSGB magazine) a few months back.
The actual issue is that the manufacturers are leaving off the mains filter components.
They are still being sold on Amazon.

Thursday I noticed my WPSR results and spot ranking had tanked, I check a receiver and there was an almighty level of QRM, checked the noise charts and spotted that it started at around 8:15 the previous evening (Wednesday).
I rotated the Wellbrook loop but it was already nulling in roughly the right direction so the signal was large. Here is a screen dump from a CB vertical.



As I have been through this many times here I often feel like just giving up and finding another hobby but after a few misserable hours I figured use the S Meter extension and gather evidence.
All through Thursday, Friday and today really bad though different patern to the first day or so.
Checked after running for nearly eight hours today and it had gone off!



By now I had taken the Wellbrook on an extension coax to a number of points so that I could identify it was coming from one particular house (who I have only spoken to once when they moved in).
Despite previous wasted time approaching neighbours about this sort of problem I knocked on the door, they were great.
Turns out it is a cheap battery charger (£18) in a shed being used to charge, and desulphate by pulse, a lead acid vehicle battery.

Don't buy this charger type please, if you see them kill them with fire and bury them at least ten feet deep.
Foxsur!



I said I'd try to sort him some filters for tests and lend him another charger but I might just give him my half decent branded one made back when compliance was a thing, can't face this level of junk again.