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Stereo amplifier hack

Cody Dixson

Active Member
May 3, 2020
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I was wondering if any hams have hacked a stereo amplifier to use as a base rf amplifier. Ive read where the stereo amplifier operates on very low frequencies. Just thought maybe someone would have an answer. In my opinion it seems like a stereo amplifier would be a good idea because of the control you have over the wave. Vs a normal on off hi med low pre amp on off settings.
 

Audio amps work with 20 Hz to 20.000 Hz frequencies, RF amps work with H.F frequencies from 1.6 to 30 MHZ, much higher in frequency and an audio amp is not made for that, transistors/fets are not made for that high frequency, not is the schematic laid out for RF amplification just Audio.
Normally i change the power output on the fly with the transceiver i use now the FT991A and can set it from 5 to 100 watts.
Driving the SB 1000 amp after the tuning i just lower the drive to the amp to the power i need at that moment.

Don't know what you mean with pre amp settings for that i use the pre amp 1 or 2 or RF gain to change the gain in the receiver or even attenuator with very strong signals.
In short, no you cannot use any audio amplifier for HF amplification, transmit or receive.
 
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10-4 thanks @Justme for the info im new to the hobby and thought sound waves might just be sound waves and amplifying them was the same across the board but like @Shadetree Mechanic said they dont like to obey do they lol. Thanks again and ill apologize to anyone who reads my post and thinks wtf is this guy doing in his shack lol I enjoy picking the brains of more experienced or educated hams. If there's one think ive learned in life is its easier to pay attention and learn something from someone who has been there done that instead of being stubborn and learing the hard way!

73
 
One thing that I think is really interesting about audio and rf is the way that the AM signal is transmitted. The audio amplifier is literally connected right to the rf power driver and final along with the rf. I always thought It would be more complicated than that. I will see if I can find a link.
 
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A perfectly logical question to ask IMHO.

The circuits are different, too different.

And the components used are too slow for RF frequencies. All transistors have an upper frequency limit. RF transistors are engineered so they can turn on and off a lot faster than is needed to amplify audio. But that boosts their cost. Audio power amplifiers are built with power transistors that are just too slow to respond to RF signals. But they're much cheaper.

73
 
You already know how AM works using a typical AM only CB Radio, they throw audio onto the power line that goes to the finals - you just have to know of a way to make it bigger to handle the larger, greater capacity the audio amplifier has to add more signal onto the power supply to those Finals.

Many older stereos used transformer coupling - read this early 70's - but later they switched to capacitor coupling - they still had to use a winding or two, but that process made radios more "bassy" in response - which back in the 70's everyone that had a Stereo system - talked about THD as a means to "Brag" about how good their system is. So that usually indicated they used Capacitor coupling versus the older impedance driven transformer winding types that took the amps really low output impedance and raised it up to 8 to as much as 16 ohms - that's the transformer style to meet the speaker impedance and reproduce sound faithfully as a means of matching impedance..

The Crossovers they use nowadays may be the only method left to attain some winding matching that can work.

However, the Stereos power supply usually ran about 36 to as high as 50 volts for the capacitive coupling to overcomes the losses in their matching networks to drive the speakers.

So if you could take a typical MOSFET and placed its Drain to Source - directly to the Stereos power supply and feed that extra voltage from the Stereo directly to it, I can see where it is possible to use the Stereos' power supply to at least drive a MOSFET - it won't give you thousand of watts - but it will drive the MOSFET you just have to put the Modulation Transformer in it somehow with enough winds to make it work to take the Stereos capacitive coup0ling network and the Stereos power feed from its' supply - tie it together and you can make it work.

People would say it's not easily done, and no it needs a lot of experimentation and work plus new winding design to inject audio to apply the signal power to the Power supply feed. They did something similar to this when Light bulbs from Edison came out - done to stages of theaters to allow for dimming - and raising of the lights - a coil and core combination called a RELUCTOR was used - it was a basic laminated core with a pivot that allowed the user to move the core in and out of a bank of coils - to handle several hundred watts of power without generating heat or having to somehow provide a dropping resistor - the bank of bulbs used the inductance of the cores as it went in and out of their coils to act as a means to offset power by impedance method - change the impedance affected the lights ability to drop current - hence the name Reluctor.

Nowadays, they use Thrysistor dimmer circuits which are safer and solid state - but the effort you're looking into is a similar process only at the audio level - so you'd have to apply modulation transformer and design one to meet the needs - it's not impossible - just not easy...
 
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I did this once only because the cabinet and heatsink were suitable. I was not able to repurpose any other valuable parts to make it an RF amp.
 

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