There is also a large family of low-capacitance limiter diodes from a
number of (non-Chinese) sources designed specifically for the purpose if
you choose to build your own. They are readily available from standard
suppliers like Mouser and Digikey. They are not expensive.
Again, the use of these limiters does not guarantee a silver bullet in
preventing damage.
Dave - W?LEV
On Fri, May 16, 2025 at 5:21?PM WS1M - bammi via groups.io <jbammi=
[email protected]> wrote:
As Dave mentioned limiters like mini-circuits VLM-33W-2W-S+ are a good
solution. Unfortunately these are hard to get as they are being
re-designed, and ebay sellers know this and have jacked up prices to mafia
levels.
Fortunately for us, another great solution is the equivalent TAPR, their
limiter can be purchased from here
Please *Note* that the TAPR version is only spec'ed up to 6M (54 MHz) and
is not as wide bandwidth as the mini-circuits that goes up much higher.
Please read the description on the above page before buying.
Another option is the receiver guard from DX engineering
This has an operating range 500 kHz to 150 MHz - still not as wide band
as the mini-circuits and has limitation on the lower frequencies unlike the
mini-circuits or the TAPR limiters. This unit has BNC connectors and not
SMA.
There are many pin-diode based limiters on eBay/Aliexpress, none of them
have clear specs, so buyer beware.
Also please note the presence of such limiters still does not guarantee
full protection due to limits of input power, output leakage, recovery time
and non linear behavior outside the defined bandwidth. In any case you
cannot willy-nilly pump watts into these, things will still go up in smoke!
You still need to attenuate and/or use a good quality sampler (see w2aew's
videos on these topics, all of his videos are so excellent)
If you are so inclined, I can suggest starting with this and then search
for all related videos
--
73 de ws1m
bammi
--
*Dave - W?LEV*
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Dave - W?LEV
