This one is shaped like a big rectangular friend. It’s a GatesAir ULXTE-30, which can give you 19.2 kilowatts out of its 30 amplifier modules.

This one’s practically brand new and is pretty much an illustration of how densely you can build a LDMOS based solid state linear amplifier! Gates says it can give you up to 45% efficiency which is pretty dang good for linear amplification – a necessary evil with transmission modes that use amplitude keying such as 8VSB, QAM, and COFDM. All the major heat sources on this unit are cooled by a standard 50% mix automotive grade antifreeze solution circulated through tubes in the modules.

From top to bottom:

I forgot to annotate this but the harmonic filter is that ridged black tube up top above the cabinet. It doesn’t get dissipate much energy at all and requires no active cooling.

The exciters are responsible for generating the RF carrier, modulating it with data input from the broadcast encoders (back at the studio in our case), and applying precorrection for frequency and group delay response of the amplifier and filter system. GatesAir calls the latter their RTAC System, for Real-time Active Correction. Only one is actually on air at a time, but you can switch exciter in case of one failing, or to allow you to do things like update the software on one while the other is on air.

The controller provides local and remote (web interface) control and metering of the transmitter’s functioning as well as controlling the power and cooling systems. It has canbus communications to the rest of the system.

You can see that the modules below are in three distinct groups. This is because the whole thing is of a modular design; lower wattage units may have only one or two of those ten-pack units and can even have the cooling pump station built right into the bottom of the cabinet! This one’s just packed with power, though. The power supplies are slide out modules with air cooling – they’re pretty high efficiency so they don’t need a lot of airflow. The weird little pick on the door is used to lift the latch that holds them in if you have to remove one.

In each group of modules, the upper two are a preamp and driver stage, and the rest are final power amplifiers. The output of each goes to a backplane with a combiner that feeds into the large black combiner seen in the back of the cabinet. The two glycol cooled reject loads absorb any reflected power caused by imbalances in the system.

Look carefully and you’ll see I placed a pink asterisk at the top. This is indicating a small yellow wifi router. If you don’t use this I’d recommend unplugging the power lead to it. It’s not vital for anything, it’s basically just used if you have a wireless tablet used to get into the web interface instead of a device on wired Ethernet.

The pumps are external on this system. They’re the unit on the right here. To the left is a combiner and filter unit that’s combining this and the output of another transmitter to a common transmission line and antenna. There are four variable frequency drives on it, two control the pumps and two control the fans outside on the radiator.

The heat yeeter:

To date the only thing I’ve had to do with this transmitter was replace one power supply module that tanked under warranty and top up the cooling system. It’s a good tall beige friend.