I made this transmitter to transmit streaming video from my RC plane to my ground station in my car.
The camera had an internal transmitter, but the output was insufficient. Only 1.8mW of HF power left the transmitter, good enough for 50m and that’s it.
After some research and advice from other OM’s I decided to design an amplifier out of an MMIC. I bought the
MGA 82563 made by Agilent. It has a frequencies range from 0.1 to 6GHz and delivers a maximum output of 17dBm. Plenty power to reach my goal and not to much to save weight in the plane (battery’s!)
After making the PCB with 50ohm in and output transmission lines the amplifier was ready for testing. After measuring the output I was very pleased, 32mW of output power!
Both camera and amplifier run on 9V. A voltage regulator, LP2950CZ-3.3 delivers 3.3V to the amplifier. I placed a SMB connector on the camera’s chassis that brought the signal from the modulator outside, from there it went to the amplifier.
To make a more universal transmitter I removed the modulator from the camera en placed it in the case of the amplifier who then turned in to a transmitter with video input (right) and 1.1GHz output (left).
Here the final result:
Here are some images "in action", these were made without the amplifier.
