A 70cm DATV TX filter using a cheap Chinese duplexer

A 70cm DATV DVB-T 7 MHz band-pass filter using a cheap Chinese duplexer

Introduction

DATV transmitters for DVB-T are notorious for "spread" outside the channel, to the point that keeping it 30 dB or more below the signal becomes a limit for power output, typically 10 W out of a 70 W module amplifier.

Even with -30 dB spread, it is desirable to have a band-pass filter before further amplification or transmission. Usually an interdigital filter is used, but they are either expensive to buy or a bit difficult to build.

VK4JVC suggested using a cavity filter duplexer instead. I tried a four cavity notch duplexer, but the pass-band losses were too high, more than 20 dB. I had bought a cheap, ~A$100, Chinese Jiesai duplexer, but had put it aside as the response looked bad. After try other duplexers (notch and pass-reject types), I tried the Chinese one again, this time successfully.

The result is that the Chinese filter seems to provide a good pass-band for the 7 MHz DVB-T DATV signal with acceptable pass-band losses and steep skirts. The next test is to try it with my 10 W amplifier from Darko in Austria.

The filter

The duplexer is a typical mobile device available on eBay for about A$100 delivered, taking a week or so to Australia. The store insisted I supply some tuning data, even though I was immediately going to change it. I specified 440.5 and 446.5 MHz to keep them happy. It came with notches at those frequencies, but had not been well tuned.

The filter has three square cavities for each of RX and TX. The only adjustment is a screw at the top that capacitively alters the cavity's resonate frequency. There are no other adjustments. Each cavity has an cable in and out, but they seem to be notch filters rather than pass-band.

I am not sure what the power handling capacity is, 25 W, from memory. That would make it an adequate final TX filter for most DATV applications.

Tuning

The Australian 70 cm DATV band is 7 MHz wide centered on 446.5 MHz, with edges at 443 and 450 MHz. I use the whole 7 MHz as it makes reception on conventional TVs easier and I want high quality 1080p.

Using a HP 8591A spectrum analyser and tracking generator, re-tuning is quite easy. Three cavities at a time first (RX-ANT, TX-ANT), then checking all six with the input and output through the RX and TX connectors, ignoring the antenna connector.

I have tuned the cavities to about -3 dB at the channel edges. The loss through all six cavities is about 2 dB which indicates quite reasonable construction. The side slopes are quite steep.

I am not sure this tune will be adequate to suppress the channel spread, but I will re-tune to find an acceptable compromise. I may need to narrow the width, but without affecting the TX signal.

Conclusion

A cheap Chinese duplexer has bee re-tuned to produce what appears to be an acceptable TX band-pass filter for a 7 MHz wide channel on 70 cm.

Despite their reputation, the Chinese duplexer seems of reasonable quality and has typical characteristics for this type of device. The original tuning was indifferent, so should always be checked.