Minicircuits 10% discount in December
Am 05.12.2014 um 10:29 schrieb Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd):
change rate of close to 1 USD = 1 GBP. I seem to be between a rock and
a hard place - either pay a ridiculous exchange rate, or pay a
ridiculous shipping & handling cost.
Dave, G8WRB.
Try Digi-Key. Free shipping for orders > €65. I have observed delivery
times < 36h to Germany.
It may not be MiniCircuits but Pulse, Macom, Avago, Infineon, EPCOS,
Sky, AD, Hittite...
Prices are ok.
England won't be much different than EU.
Gerhard, dk4xp
Hi
On Dec 5, 2014, at 4:29 AM, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd) drkirkby@kirkbymicrowave.co.uk wrote:
On 27 Nov 2014 13:56, "Jim Lux" jimlux@earthlink.net wrote:
Time to stock up on those transformers, mixers, amplifiers<grin>
"Throughout the month of December, all online orders of any quantity of
any Mini-Circuits catalog model from our web store on minicircuits.com will
receive a 10% *discount!
"
I thought I would place my order online to get the discount, whereas I
normally do by phone.
I decided to order from the USA rather than the UK. MiniCircuits charged me
$102 to ship twelve SMA terminations and ten N terminations by UPS. That is
their "shipping & handling change".
I could send the same bits from the UK to the USA for less than 50% of that
and I don't have a UPS account. A UPS account holder would get a better
rate.
Shipping across the atlantic has become silly expensive over the last decade. There are a lot of organizations that are behind the curve on figuring out how to do it cheaply.
Bob
I can get free shipping in the UK if I spend more than some relatively
small amount, but I pay a lot more for the parts. Minicircuits use an
exchange rate of close to 1 USD = 1 GBP.
I seem to be between a rock and a hard place - either pay a ridiculous
exchange rate, or pay a ridiculous shipping & handling cost.
Dave, G8WRB.
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On 5 Dec 2014 12:23, "Bob Camp" kb8tq@n1k.org wrote:
Shipping across the atlantic has become silly expensive over the last
decade. There are a lot of organizations that are behind the curve on
figuring out how to do it cheaply.
Bob
I ship VNA calibration kits across the Atlantic almost every week -
admittedly in the other direction. It doesn't cost me anything like what
Minicircuits charge.
I regularly buy thins sent via Fedex, UPS and DHL, and don't pay so much to
ship what must be less than 2 kg - possibly less than 1 kg.
I suspect that the "handling" part of the charge is the real problem.
Dave.
On 12/5/14, 4:50 AM, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd) wrote:
On 5 Dec 2014 12:23, "Bob Camp" kb8tq@n1k.org wrote:
Shipping across the atlantic has become silly expensive over the last
decade. There are a lot of organizations that are behind the curve on
figuring out how to do it cheaply.
Bob
I ship VNA calibration kits across the Atlantic almost every week -
admittedly in the other direction. It doesn't cost me anything like what
Minicircuits charge.
I regularly buy thins sent via Fedex, UPS and DHL, and don't pay so much to
ship what must be less than 2 kg - possibly less than 1 kg.
I suspect that the "handling" part of the charge is the real problem.
There's probably some peculiarity that makes it "difficult" for
MiniCircuits. Maybe they have to jump through some export control hoops
or there's some hazardous material declaration or some such; and they
haven't figured out how to do it cheaply.
It could be as simple as "it's an outlier and a very manual process".
You could send them a nice inquiry and ask..
It is odd, but not surprising.
Am 29.11.2014 um 20:01 schrieb Gerhard Hoffmann:
Am 29.11.2014 um 19:08 schrieb Thomas S. Knutsen:
2014-11-29 16:24 GMT+01:00 Dave M dgminala@mediacombb.net:
Yeah, that's a good way to completely avoid the issue. Since I'm the
only
target audience for my efforts, then I don't mind the extra components.
I'm beginning to realize, as I get deeper into building my own stuff,
that
a VNA is quite a desireable piece of equipment. Unfortunately, I'll
have
to make use of my spectrum analyzer and RLC meters instead.
Ok, I volunteer to measure the S21 of a dc-force-fed T1-1 or T4-1 next
weekend, when
I'm back home. (DG8SAQ VNWA and / or W&G TSA-2)
Really, on osc, a voltmeter and a DC source are enough.
Here it is: Mini circuits T1-1T, new very old stock, still in black
case, not
one of the new whitish ones that turn brown in the week after soldering.
0 / 25 / 50 / 100 mA on the secondary side from Agilent 6633B dc supply.
It is nice that you can directly type in the voltages or currents.
But you better do not take this thing for anything that is sensitive to
noise.
DG8SAQ VNWA, my best DC block from PSPL because it also has the
lowest lower corner. It took some experimenting to find a choke that
would not modify S21 and carry the current. Finally: a medium size
red Amidon core & two 220uH Siemens chokes with a looong air gap.
<
https://picasaweb.google.com/103357048842463945642/Tronix?authuser=0&feat=directlink
The low frequency corner suffers already at 25 mA. The high frequency side
is unimpressed by the current. Just what one expects from a transmission
line
transformer that gets ferrite as an anabolicum for the low frequencies.
The transformer survived 1A for a short time and did not seem to suffer
from that abuse s-parameter-wise.
regards, Gerhard
Gerhard Hoffmann wrote:
Am 29.11.2014 um 20:01 schrieb Gerhard Hoffmann:
Am 29.11.2014 um 19:08 schrieb Thomas S. Knutsen:
2014-11-29 16:24 GMT+01:00 Dave M dgminala@mediacombb.net:
Yeah, that's a good way to completely avoid the issue. Since I'm
the only
target audience for my efforts, then I don't mind the extra
components. I'm beginning to realize, as I get deeper into building
my own stuff, that
a VNA is quite a desireable piece of equipment. Unfortunately, I'll
have
to make use of my spectrum analyzer and RLC meters instead.
Ok, I volunteer to measure the S21 of a dc-force-fed T1-1 or T4-1
next weekend, when
I'm back home. (DG8SAQ VNWA and / or W&G TSA-2)
Really, on osc, a voltmeter and a DC source are enough.
Here it is: Mini circuits T1-1T, new very old stock, still in black
case, not
one of the new whitish ones that turn brown in the week after
soldering.
0 / 25 / 50 / 100 mA on the secondary side from Agilent 6633B dc
supply. It is nice that you can directly type in the voltages or currents.
But you better do not take this thing for anything that is sensitive
to noise.
DG8SAQ VNWA, my best DC block from PSPL because it also has the
lowest lower corner. It took some experimenting to find a choke that
would not modify S21 and carry the current. Finally: a medium size
red Amidon core & two 220uH Siemens chokes with a looong air gap.
<
https://picasaweb.google.com/103357048842463945642/Tronix?authuser=0&feat=directlink
The low frequency corner suffers already at 25 mA. The high frequency
side is unimpressed by the current. Just what one expects from a
transmission line
transformer that gets ferrite as an anabolicum for the low
frequencies.
The transformer survived 1A for a short time and did not seem to
suffer from that abuse s-parameter-wise.
regards, Gerhard
Many thanks for the graphs, Gerhard. I suspected that the low end would be
the first to suffer, but didn't know how much. Those curves explain the
reason for the 30ma limit; it's to keep the devices' specs definable. With
a higher limit, the insertion loss specs would be terrible, and nobody would
buy them.
The text on the screen shots is a bit hard to read, but I think the curves
told me what I wanted to know..As with most other devices, it's best to stay
away from the Max figures on the datasheet.
Thanks for taking the trouble to make the measurements and share the
results.
Dave M
Please Gerhard, more details on your choke
(medium size red Amidon core & two 220 uH Siemens chokes).
Maybe I can use it for 160 meter antennas.
Your T1-1 measurements make sense according to
my experience with these things. The "-6"
series (T1-6, etc) has larger cores and should
withstand more DC. (I like to take apart
MCL stuff to see what is inside; very enlightening).
I always use the -6 series for 160 meter work.
Thanks, 73
Rick Karlquist N6RK
On 12/7/2014 10:14 PM, Gerhard Hoffmann wrote:
Am 29.11.2014 um 20:01 schrieb Gerhard Hoffmann:
DG8SAQ VNWA, my best DC block from PSPL because it also has the
lowest lower corner. It took some experimenting to find a choke that
would not modify S21 and carry the current. Finally: a medium size
red Amidon core & two 220uH Siemens chokes with a looong air gap.
Am 08.12.2014 um 18:57 schrieb Dave M:
The text on the screen shots is a bit hard to read, but I think the
curves told me what I wanted to know..As with most other devices, it's
best to stay away from the Max figures on the datasheet.
You can get the pictures by action -> download and then watch them
locally with the picture viewer of your choice.
regards, Gerhard
Am 08.12.2014 um 19:26 schrieb Richard (Rick) Karlquist:
Please Gerhard, more details on your choke
(medium size red Amidon core & two 220 uH Siemens chokes).
Maybe I can use it for 160 meter antennas.
Siemens Chokes: yellow, 5.5mm dia, 27 mm long, a single ferrite rod
with a lot of turns. They still have the S&H logo, must be >> 20 years old
221.9 uH Q=17 at 100 KHz, measured on the 4274A impedance meter.
Amidon: Red, the usual 80m material, 20.5mm o.d. 17 turns 0.5mm CuAg
1.962 uH Q=24 at 100 KHz
pic of the inductors at
<
https://picasaweb.google.com/103357048842463945642/Tronix?authuser=0&feat=directlink>
The board in the background is my 5/10 MHz buffer, NIST FET doubler with
2*BF862,
distribution amplifier 4 * 12 dBm based on AD8009 / LMH6702, in statu
nascendi.
Yesterday I drew & etched the board, at the moment I'm just populating it.
All 0603, sot23-5 and the like. Size is just 32 * 68 mm without the
protruding SMAs.
The next picture is how the Lucent RFTG-u REF1 looks with the board
mounted inside.
And many thanks to the people who wrote up how to power up the Lucent.
It has helped me a lot.
regards, Gerhard, dk4xp