Is This A Perfect Companion RF Amplifier For Low Power Radios? PA-100D (Maybe)

Here we check out a pretty small 150 Watt RF HF Amplifier which works with any HF Radio. Is this a clone of the Juma PA-100D, or is it a clone with modifications? Let's test it out!
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[@jeffbrown5370]

Using a USB to RS232 and Thetis you can do auto band switching to the unit as you can have Thetis emulate the Yaesu/Icom/Elecraft output to the RS232 DB 9 connection.

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Really? I have to test this tonight as that would save me configuring the IO board on the HL2, thanks for the tip!

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Just tested this. However, using the Thetis build for use with HL2, there is no Yaesu setting. BUT! You can select KX3 on the amp, disable polling on the amp, and then select Kenwood TS2000 and tick "Allow Kenwood AI Command", then it works perfect! Wow... thanks again for the suggestion!

[@ScatManAust]

Been spying this off for a cuppla months now just waiting for a review to pop up. Was offered a cheaper price but I let it go because lack of info. Matt, please do another review showing spectrum.

[@K4AX]

I picked one of these up to use with the Hermes, along with another local ham to me as well. Both are doing great. I think my fan temp needs calibration though, I think you can do that over the RS232 port.

[@LanceVK6LK_AussieHam]

It would be nice to see it on a spectrum analyzer. It could be shockingly dirt with strong harmonics or not. No one will know unless tested. Thanks for the video.

[@z000z]

I bought one of these PA100 amps a couple of months back from eBay. I had to tighten some areas of the housing but other than that it seems to work well. I use it with a HL2 along with the I/O board emulating a FT817 for band switching. That works perfect. I'm currently testing it to drive a Palstar LA-1K amplifier. I need to get myself much more familiar with Thetis. There are so many configuration options and parameter tweaks that it can be a bit overwhelming. Getting Pure Signal enabled and functioning correctly is also a want of mine. Fun and interesting stuff.

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Where did you get the IO board image for FT817 emulation? Or did you just use the sample project? I learnt the other day, from a comment on here, that Thetis can control the amp. I know how Thetis controlling the band selection automatically. Cheers

[@z000z]

@@TechMindsOfficial I'll have review some notes from when I did this. In a nutshell I did use a readily available sample app for the I/O board and I wired a 3.5mm TRS (stereo) socket to the I/O board to use a simple stereo cable between the HL2 and the amplifier. The band switching voltages were exact coming from the HL2. I assumed the amp I have was a clone of the juma PA100 but the TRS pinout on the AMP differed slightly (or the connector was just of poor quality, not completely in spec) that I wired two of the pins together for proper connection. I stumbled across that pulling the cable out and the band switched. Originally I couldn't get the amp to respond. It's worked perfectly ever since.

[@mariodesmo]

Price is up by $60 from the price in your description's link. They must be selling a few. LOL

[@mikechace-ortiz4180]

The kiwiSDR trace appears to show a carrier on your LSB signal.

[@TechMindsOfficial]

No, that was a coincidence. I was wondering when someone might see that and then blame the amp.

[@4X4-RADIO]

The MRF247 is a 75W Device, optimised for VHF ~ 135-175MHz They are pushing them to the Limit, 2 75W Devices outpoting 130~140 Watts My THP FT-817 50W HF Linear use 2 X 50W Devices

[@frankENZC]

Running this amp at 100 watts out should be good. 73

[@la7dfa]

It is typical for "CB" amps to just state the max ratings without any losses. My FTDX101d has 2*100W mosfets for a 100W clean output. This Juma design is looking pretty good for a 100W use in the shack tho.

[@x_CrossHair_x]

I'm A Big Fan of QRP Equipment This Amplifier looks very nice (On the outside.).. It's too bad there are many (Sketchy Bootleg Versions) Making one Question (The Inside). Not knowing if it's Performance has been compromised. (With low grade Components).. Buyer Beware..

[@roymetzger4862]

I purchased one a about two months ago from Banggood. It arrived and overheated as soon as it was connected to 13.8v without a radio transmitting. I'm battling with Bangkok at this time. I will release my you tube video soon . they took a month to get me a manual then it didn't work. I'm an Electrical Engineer and Extra class ham in the US.

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Hi ya, strange that it "overheated".. The manual has been on the BG Product listing page for a few weeks now, so not sure why you waited for them to send it to you. Anyhow, besides the manual, I just watched your video, and wow, yep, that has a problem! As you are an electrical engineer I guess you come to same initial conclusion as me, that the finals bias has been set incorrectly and then the amplifier has gone into self-oscillation. Did you come to the same conclusion? Did you open the lid to take a look incase a cable or something has come loose in transit? If you get issues with returning the amp, please contact me directly via email and I will talk to my contacts at BG to get this sorted for you. thanks, Matt, M0DQW

[@TechMindsOfficial]

BTW, mine is still running perfectly. I use it daily with my Hermes lite 2 and it kicks arse. :-)

[@Spookieham]

As a review of what a modern semiconductor linear amp can it's a great video. I'll stick though to my old Clippertron tube amp even if the bastard thing weighs a ton

[@krahwinkel9503]

Oh dear, please no additional unlicensed copy of somebody else's IPR. I followed the JUMA community for a while but now went for a FT-710 instead of buying a PA for my QRP rigs.

[@chublez]

This is the way. A 2nd QRO radio is superior to a small amp fer a QRP. No coax spaghetti. The QRO can stay on the desk and the QRP can stay in the go bag.

[@stefanpaul9443]

Same here - got me a FT891 in addition to the KX2 and FT818….

[@la7dfa]

To buy a QRP radio to run 100W with a PA is generally pretty dumb, unless you have a "SOTA radio" that you operate outdoors at low power at times. My FT-817 and other QRP stuff is lying on a shelf, while the proper 100W HF radio is the daily driver.

[@aussiebeardsman1267]

​@la7dfa buy any radio remotely in the same ball park as the hermes lite 2 as a 100w rig... you are looking at the icom 7610... a 100w pa behind the hermes gives you the same power as the 7610 and much much more then the 7610

[@la7dfa]

@@aussiebeardsman1267 I have the FTDX101d and it will probably be my main radio for the next decade. But tks for the tip.

[@j204ever5]

Where do you connect the BAND Cable to the KX3? And what is AUTO exactly?

[@vu3mes]

A carbon copy of Juma PA100.

[@KD9ZHF]

How clean is the output?

[@paulmitchell4421]

pair of mrf 247 if biased right should be pretty transparent

[@BadgerNNN]

7:33 you can hear from the kiwi how clean it is.

[@KD9ZHF]

@@BadgerNNN thanks.

[@LanceVK6LK_AussieHam]

@@BadgerNNNthat won’t show harmonics just that it’s not splattering. Needs to be tested with a SA

[@richardtwyning]

For an M7 can this be manually controlled so it can give 25W when used with the IC-705?

[@dirkr7891]

What is the Output on 10m?

[@trevorvankleef235]

Hermes lite video please, really interested. Cheers

[@slappomatthew]

if you arent bothered by a pretty steep learning curve the hermes lite 2 is basically an end game radio. being fully SDR it will almost never be obsolete. it can do things a $5000 icom cant.

[@don_n5skt]

@@slappomatthew The Hermes Lite 2.0 is a single transmitter/receiver version of a $3000+ Apache Labs Anan. And it has the full functionality of the Anan but only one receiver unit and it is a QRP radio. It is simply amazing. BTW, I also have an Anan 7000 DLE so I can compare them. There are for sure differences but not in the quality of the input or output signals.

[@thomasstandley6309]

Actually, another HL2 video with some insight on the HL IO Board would be really appreciated. I have looked but cannot find anything on the IO board install or operation.

[@brettuk]

Doug (G6INU) is one of the best ham's on 40m to talk about audio quality imho. He's helped me dial-in the eq/processing etc on a few rigs :) p.s. Can the PA do more than 50 watts AM? my ft710 can only do 25 watts even though it is 100w for everything else.

[@PaulTaylor1]

That's because it peaks 100W on AM, so the unmodulated carrier is 25W. If the carrier was 50W or higher, the radio would still peak at 100W and you'd have really quiet modulation because there'd be little difference between the silent carrier and your loudest voice peaks.

[@brettuk]

@@PaulTaylor1 thanks Paul. Your comment has educated me. it looks like I have hit my operating limit on AM as a 2e0 so I shouldn't be looking to increase my power then on AM! Cheers :)

[@la7dfa]

@@brettuk Yes the carrier on AM should be 25% of the total power output. So for a 50W carrier you would need a 200W PA with great cooling. AM is pretty much a waste of energy with the carrier and one of the sidebands just for heating up stuff. Only the other sideband is useful in most cases.

[@0kti]

Will work with Xiegu G90?

[@slappomatthew]

sure.

[@vonzigle]

Thanks!

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Thank you very much! Very much appreciated!

[@boomstickaficionados]

This may be a really dumb question but I'm new to HAM. Could I use something like this with radioberry setup? I want to amplify the signal but I'm not sure if it will even work.

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Interestingly I am playing with a Radioberry at the moment. The output from a Radioberry will not be enough to drive this amp, however I think there is a "group buy" of the Radioberry Pre-Amp board happening, which outputs 5 watts. It's on the google group for the radioberry.

[@boomstickaficionados]

@TechMindsOfficial No kidding! I'm definitely in! I found one site where someone made some kind of preamp that was putting out 20 watts but I couldn't find any information on it. I will definitely get in on a group buy.

[@ronny9259]

Tnx 73vy

[@tubeDude48]

What software was being used?

[@TechMindsOfficial]

Thetis for HL2

[@tubeDude48]

@@TechMindsOfficial - Never heard of it!

[@4X4-RADIO]

Does it include 60M/5.0MHz in the Band Selection.?

[@la7dfa]

I assume you can use the 40m low pass filter with no problem for 60M.

[@morecambeanglersandtrawler1074]

Could I use my g90 with this amp please ?

[@robertbrown3413]

Aside from the moral aspect of buying ripped off design, it surprises me they can still get these obsolete LDMOS parts in quantity.

[@EasyOne]

nice

[@richie4540]

Nice

[@LawpickingLocksmith]

neat!

[@joewoodchuck3824]

The real output power with 5 watts RF input will be a fraction of 150 watts.

[@TechMindsOfficial]

What?

[@joewoodchuck3824]

@@TechMindsOfficial I knew that someone would question me on that. It's a 150 watt amplifier with a maximum input of 15 watts. The 150 watt output can only be achieved with that 15 watts of input. It will not achieve the full output with less power. So in this case 150 ÷ 15 = a gain of 10 X. There's no magical change in gain with varying levels of input. There would need to be an input circuit that levels the gain according input power that I've ever heard of, at least not in ham equipment. If not how would the amplifier remain linear for changes in modulation? Otherwise there would be distortion. So, that constant gain figure of 10 would remain the same no matter what the input power is. Thus 5 watts in times a gain of 10 X equals 50 watts output. 5 X 10 = 50. For an FT817 it's effectively a 50 watt amplifier. Can you explain differently?

[@TechMindsOfficial]

@joewoodchuck3824 yes, I can explain. It has 4 gain levels. G1 to G4. Technically they are attenuators. So G4 will give full power with a 2.5 watt input. G1 would attenuate 15 Watts max.

[@joewoodchuck3824]

@@TechMindsOfficial Ah, that's different than most.

[@randykitchleburger2780]

Attention all GMRS users:

[@randykitchleburger2780]

Oh I though this was the UHF varient. I have seen UHF and VHF varients too.

[@sm0jzt]

Defenitely a blunt chineese copy of the great design by the JUMA-team. I would not support buying a thing like this.

[@pauls8456]

Probably but JUMA seem to have supply issues as they have numerous items on back order or sold out which doesn’t help their cause….

[@sm0jzt]

@@pauls8456 That is not a reason to go ahead and buy a brute copy. That can even be a reason why they have stopped some production, due to copycats.

[@pauls8456]

@@sm0jzt yes but it’s a bit ‘chicken and egg’ isn’t it?

[@paulmitchell4421]

does it work on 11 meters?? ;)

[@billryland6199]

The power limit on 11 meters is 12 watts PEP.

[@KQ4JGS]

@@billryland6199 Good luck with that.

[@nmaster2042]

nobody wants to try and reply ?

[@gaspumprepairservice7009]

@@nmaster2042 😂

[@mkaylor]

JUMA Rip Off

[@YO6TJJ]

yes, illegal ripoff and not measured, no warranty, no service, nothing behind...