800MHz mobile data amp question

[Pj]

I ended up with one of the 800MHz MDT 35 watt amps that where used with many MW520's and other devices. These are the ones in the spectra style case.

#1-Can this be used with voice?
#2-What is the usable freq range?
#3-Do these have any sort of pre-amps in them?

I am thinking of doing evil things with this, more as just experimenting before I sell it or throw it in the trash.

Part/model number is FLN2424A.

[Dan562]

Pj,

The FLN2424A is a product of Motorola Israel which will be a pain in the lower posterior just trying to get any Subscriber product information on. I would think that since it's a Subscriber RF Power Amplifier, the unit should pass voice communications without a problem even though it was marketed as a Data Amplifier. I would not believe this unit has any type of receiver pre-amplification built into the unit as that's not in Motorola's engineering design and development criteria.

Many years ago when Motorola's International Engineering and Sales Department existed, they almost always Drop Shipped the (OEM) Henry Radio RF Amplifiers out of the U.S. and none of these amplifiers contained RF Pre-Amplifiers within the units. As you probably realize the RF Pre-Amps are good to boost the receiver's In-Bound signal but stating this they also brought up the noise level and a greater possibly of Intermod in the Subscriber application.

If i had this unit just sitting around and not knowing the frequency bandwidth, I'd put the unit up on the bench with a Subscriber 800 MHz Portable, a +13.6 V DC @ 10 ~ 12 A Power Supply, a 50 Watts RF Dummy Load and a Bird 43 Wattmeter with a 50 Watt (400 - 1000 MHz) Slug and experiment with the unit. It could not hurt as you're ready to just toss it in the garbage anyway. On the practical side just remember, when inserting a RF amplifier into your application, the signal must be boosted by +6, +9 or +10 dB to be heard on the receiving end.

Dan

[Pj]

Gotcha. This is the 2nd one that has been dropped on my desk, and have no real use for it...and you can't even give these away on ebay. However, the only thing I could see a use for (and not type accepted for I'm sure) is to have it interface with cell phone/data card still using the 800 portion of the band when operating in fringe area's (like where I live). Nevermind that you would really piss off the carriers, but I don't see too much benefit these days.