Panatap Update: Living in the Real World

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Hi all! Just a quick update in regards to the responses I’ve received for my Panatap board.

First off, thanks to everyone who’s given me positive feedback for my design. I really appreciate everyone who has found my design useful, and I hope that future projects that I’m working on will be just as helpful.

One thing I wanted to address is a question that several people have commented or emailed me about: component values. Specifically the values of the capacitors and inductors used in the low pass filter. The values I specified in the schematic and in the board file are the raw values that came directly from the filter calculator linked in my previous post. Many of you noticed that it is neigh on impossible to get components at these values, and while I knew that as I was designing the board I never really bothered to actually update anything to reflect real-world values that could be used. As of today, I’ve updated the files on the github project to reflect the real component values that I used in the construction of my boards. In addition, I’ve added a new file with Digikey part numbers for all of the parts involved in the construction of the board. Hopefully that gives you guys a running start on constructing your own boards. I also added the LTSpice simulation file that I used for testing the original circuit for you to play around with if you’d like.

That’s all! I’m super happy that people are actually getting use from my design, and I hope that this project inspires you to dive into the world of RF PCB design for yourself.

73

One comment

  1. HI all,
    I’ve assembled W3AXL Panatap board and successfully installed it in my FT-857d. Works fine on all HF bands, great design.

    I have a couple spare boards (it was a bulk order) . If anybody interested let me know (see my email in QRZ.com)

    73!
    Andriy
    W9KM

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