Finally talked to the east coast with my homebrew setup

[ka1tdq]

I had a good QSO with non other than Steve WA1QIX tonight on 40 meters.  It was a little rough with lightning crashes, AM broadcast, slop-buckets and other CQ callers, but we made it after QSY-ing a couple times.  I'm just happy that this stuff I threw together actually works and is able to communicate coast-to-coast from Arizona.

Also, lo-and-behold, my single FET rig is class D and not class C.  Big difference. 

Anyway, good chat.  Looking forward to winter time when things quiet down a little bit. 

Jon
KA1TDQ

[steve_qix]

Great chat!  Conditions improved with time as we talked.  Finally found a clear frequency, and we were able to carry on for quite while.

Good sigs on 40 tonight.  Heard some folks who were 30 to 40 over s9, and I don't hear that too often on 40 meters.

Using the SiC rig with the 900V devices.  Solved at least one problem - insufficient gate drive voltage for the current I was pulling on high positive peaks.

Unlike a standard MOSFET, the SiC devices do not saturate.  If you look at the transfer characteristics, they are rather different from a normal MOSFET.  The upshot of all this is - as much gate driving voltage as possible is needed if you want to run at the full current capability of the SiC device(s).