Texas Topper ][+ 5 band SPECIAL!Price: $60.00 |
The Texas Topper ][+ is an RF amplifier to boost your QRPp 1/2 watt signal to the *legal limit* for QRP... a full 5 Watts! A .5 watt input signal will give you 5 watts output power on the 80m and 40m bands while output is a little less than 5 watts on 30m & 20M with .5 WATT input. On the higher bands, you can get closer to 5 watts output power using additional input drive. Previous incarnations of the Topper amplifier had all harmonic filter components soldered in place on the pcb making the Topper usable on the single band it was constructed for. The NEW Texas Topper ][ has all the harmonic filter components installed on a small band module making band changes possible in seconds!
The Texas Topper ][ pcb is the exact same size as the Rockmite and Rockmite][ boards so it can also be installed into a mint tin. The band modules stick up off the board so they will not fit inside a mint tin in the installed position.
For a limited time, special TT5 kits will be available that include 4 complete band modules for: 80m, 40m, 30m and 20m. Also included is an extra band module pcb and connector for the builder to experiment with his/her band of choice. The builder must supply the filter components for the extra module...
Put some muscle into your rock bound collection of QRPp transmitters using the new more agile Topper][+ with band modules....
HISTORY:
My friend and Elmer Chuck Carpenter, W5USJ, designed a 5 watt RF amplifier to take his original Rockmite transceiver to a full 5 watts. He called it a Texas topper.
He allowed me to turn his design into a tuna can kit that I sell on my QRPme site as the Tuna Tunah amplifier kit. One of the unique features of the Tuna Tunah pcb was that the core amplifier circuit was laid out in a rectangular area in the center of the pcb.The area was the exact same footprint as the Rockmite pcb and outlined with v-scores.
So the amp circuit can be used as is on a tuna can or snapped on the v-scores to make an amp with the same footprint as the Rockmite.
Both formats are offered on the QRPme website as the Tuna Topper and Texas Topper kits. QRPme also offered powder coated, machined and engraved enclosures for both kits until our QRP friendly machinist retired. In my extensive search for a alternative enclosure, I recently found a source for affordable and cool enclosures BUT: the enclosures require specific sized pcbs to fit inside the included slots. So new pcbs had to designed to use the NEW enclosures. Since I had to lay out a new pcb and it was indeed larger than to original Rockmite footprint, I now had the opportunity to replace all those wired external connectors, switches etc with pcb mounted parts. The new Rockmite][++ and RockTopper][++ kits have all the connectors, switches, LED etc mounted directly on the pcb so they are much easire to build.
In the case of the Rockmite][++, since I was going to lay out a new pcb, I decided to make some changes that I have wanted to incorporate for many years! Like many of my tuna can kits, the Rockmite][++ now has band modules so the basic kit is no longer a monobander. The RockTopper had a band module from the beginning but the new band module is different.
IMPORTANT:
The circuits for both Rockmite][++ & RockTopper][++ are exactly the same. Only the component selection and placement has changed.The Rockmite][++ has new connectors for the new band modules and all the band specific parts are relocated to the 2 band modules. The RockTopper][++ has the exact same components including the band module parts. Again, all the input/output connections have been changed to pcb mounted parts.
Unfortunately, the original documentation for the Tuna/Texas Topper kit was written by Chuck Carpenter, W5USJ, who is now a silent key. It was written using a very esoteric documentation system that he inherited from his professional documentation dsys at Xerox. I have the original file but nothing to edit it with. Another issue is that Chuck created the last document in a cover everything style so it is kinda confusing as to what to do when due to all the options covered. I will try to create a couple of new simplified guides for the newest ][++ versions of the kits.
Documentation