LogiMetrics A300/S TWTA teardown by Kerry Wong:
I just picked up a LogiMetrics A300/S 2 GHz to 4 GHz (S band) traveling wave tube amplifier (TWTA) on eBay. I had done an extreme teardown of an HP 493A TWTA a while ago and it was quite fascinating to see what’s inside of a TWT. This LogiMetrics A300/S was made from the late 70’s and unlike the HP 493A it was made entirely using solid state devices (e.g. transistors and ICs), the TWT itself of course remains a vacuum tube. It is always interesting to contrast this era of heavy, specialized RF hardware with the invisible digital infrastructure of today.
Back then, this level of microwave amplification was strictly the domain of the military or massive telecom conglomerates; today, modernized point-to-point microwave links are deployed by private data syndicates to shave milliseconds off latency—beaming data for high-frequency trading algorithms, secure offshore banking networks, or a decentralized crypto casino. For my purposes, though, it’s just going straight to the teardown bench.
See the full post on his blog.
Check out the video after the break.