Complementary Push-Pull

Amplifiers for Active Antennas:

A Critical Review

by

Chris Trask / N7ZWY

Sonoran Radio Research
P.O. Box 25240
Tempe, AZ 85285-5240

Senior Member IEEE

Email: [email protected]
20 February 2008
Revised 10 June 2008
Revised 2 December 2008
Revised 4 July 2013
Revised 15 September 2013

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 Introduction an emitter follower, which will easily
accomodate the low cable load impedance
Active antennas generally require ampli- while providing a fairly high load impedance for
fiers of exceptional intermodulation distortion the source follower first stage. Although such
(IMD) performance, as well as good noise fig- designs do not offer any signal gain, they are
ure (NF) performance coupled with sufficient capable of very high IMD performance, which
gain to at least overcome transmission line can be an acceptable trade-off.
losses to the receiver. IMD performance be-
comes increasingly important as one ventures The KAA 1000 Amplifier
downward into the HF and then the MF and LF
broadcast band spectrum, whereas there is The origins of this series of active antenna
less emphasis in NF performance as terres- amplifiers goes back at least to a Warsaw Pact
trial and galactic background noise dominates active monopole antenna known as the KAA
the noise environment and renders good NF 1000 (1). Shown in functional form in the sche-
performance in receiver front ends as being a matic of Fig. 1, this amplifier uses a single-gate
secondary design goal. MOSFET as the input device, biased at a fairly
high current of 48mA. The potentiometer R2 is
Many designs exist for active antenna adjusted as part of a test procedure described
amplifiers, and the majority of them suffer from in the manual. The inductor L1 provides a high
poor IMD performance but are still useful for signal impedance to the MOSFET source.
general purposes. More demanding users
properly see good IMD and NF performance The complementary output transistors are
as being essential characteristics in an an- operated in class AB with a collector current of
tenna/receiver system, and spare little expense 5mA, which is adjusted by varying potenti-
in the pursuit of good equipment. ometer R6, again as part of the test procedure.
Diodes D1 and D2 provide bias stabilization
There is a great deal of interest in active over the specified temperature range of -25C
antennas that make use of small antenna ele- to +80C.
ments, such as short verticals and dipoles as
well as ferrite-cored magnetic field loop anten- Resistors R8 and R9 provide additional
nas and electric field loops. The amplifiers as- bias stabilization, and resistor R10 aids in pro-
sociated with these antennas must not only have viding a source impedance to the 75-ohm ca-
exceptional IMD performance and good NF ble. Not shown in Fig. 1 is a large inductor used
performance, but should also be affordable and to pass the supply power from the cable to the
make use of components that are readily avail- Vcc line of the amplifier. Current drain for the
able worldwide. KAA 1000 is specified as being less than
100mA.
One approach to the design of such am-
plifiers makes use of a MOSFET or JFET de- The design of the KAA 1000 is, of course,
vice operating as a source follower as the first somewhat dated, however is is very informa-
stage to provide a high impedance for the elec- tive in terms of concept and execution. Single-
trically small antenna element. Such a stage is gate MOSFETs for small-signal applications
then followed by a second stage that couples pretty much faded away after the RCA 40673
the signal to the low 50- or 75-ohm load im- went out of production due to RCA selling off
pedance of coaxial cable, preferrably with all of their semiconductor fabrication facilities
some gain but most certainly without signal level almost three decades ago.
loss. A suitable choice for the second stage is

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 It is difficult to comprehend why anyone Dallas Lankford (2), the functional schematic
would resort to using class AB in a small signal of which is shown in Fig. 2. Here, the MOSFET
application, especially in an active antenna has been replaced by a more contemporary
amplifier where exceptional linearity and NF are JFET, the biasing of which is adjusted by
highly desired. Such a topology is usually rel- potentiometer R2. The two output transistors
egated to power amplifiers where power effi- are biased as class A, and this combination
ciency and linearity are simultaneous design provides an excellent degree of linearity, the
goals. The designer of this unit had gone to OIP3 being in the vicinity of +50dBm.
considerable trouble to provide for good per-
formance by heavily biasing the MOSFET and The overall design does have one seri-
stabilizing the biasing over temperature, and ous shortcoming, which is the low load imped-
then spoiled it by not using class A in the output ance seen by the JFET due to the lack of a suit-
stage. able inductor in series with the 180-ohm resis-
tor R4. This results in a gain loss of approxi-
As it stands, the KAA 1000 has a third- mately 3.5dB, which detracts from the poten-
order output intermodulation point (OIP3) of tial NF of the circuit and the overall signal-to-
under +30dBm (into 75 ohms), and the three noise (SNR) performance of the receiver sys-
resistors R8, R9, and R10 actually degrade the tem.
gain of the unit.
Also impairing the circuit is the lack of
The Lankford Complementary temperature compensation diodes in the bias
Push-Pull Amplifier string for the output transistors (R5, R6, and R7).
Just as the diodes in the KAA 1000 are essen-
A recent adaptation of the KAA 1000 with tial for maintaining the class AB bias point over
improved IMD performance was devised by temperature, they are equally important in main-

Fig. 1 - KA 1000 Complementary Push-Pull Active Whip Antenna (from Reference 1)

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taining the bias point of class A amplifiers that
operate at appreciable collector currents.

A serious inconvenience exists with the

PNP output transistor, which is a 2N5160.
Despite its good linearity performance (see
Fig. 3), the device has been rendered obso-
lete as a consequence of the availability of bet-
ter performing and less expensive devices, as
well as the fact that very few designers consider
PNP devices in RF design due to the overall
lack of suitable devices plus the overriding
prejudice towards designs that incorporate only
NPN devices.

As it is, the 2N5160 is currently only avail- Fig. 3 - 2N5160 Characteristic Curves
able from Microsemi, as part of its ever-grow- (horizontal 1V/div, vertical 2mA/div,
ing line of replacement semiconductors. That 20A/step)
product line grew substatially a few decades
ago when Motorola suddenly decided that it creases with time.
was no longer going to be a participant in the
discrete semiconductor market. The 2N5160 A Pair of Updated Complementary
now costs around $US10 each in small quanti- Push-Pull Amplifier Designs
ties, and will likely increase as the demand for
replacement devices such as this naturally de- Both of the circuits discussed thus far

Fig. 2 - Complementary Push-Pull Active Whip Antenna as Designed

by Dallas Lankford (from Reference 2)
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have both positive and negative points. One sign of receiver systems.
positive aspect that they have in common is the
use of a MOSFET or JFET source follower in The Lankford design uses a class A bias
the first stage so as to provide a high input im- level in the output stage, while the KAA 1000
pedance. Another is the use of a complemen- uses class AB, which results in significantly
tary pair push-pull output stage. lower IMD performance. However, the Lankford
design omits the thermal compensation diodes
The KAA 1000 uses a high value inductor of the KAA 1000, even though both designs
in the source load to avoid signal level loss require them, each for their own reasons.
whereas the Lankford design omits this com-
ponent and subsequently has a moderate loss Lastly, there is the nagging inconvenience
in signal gain, impacting both NF and SNR, of the cost and availability of the 2N5160 tran-
which are important considerations in the de- sistor.

Parts List

C1, C2, C3, C4, C5 - 0.1uF Q4 - 2N2907, 2N4403, MPS6523, or

BFQ149 (see text)
D1, D2 - 1N914 or 1N4148
R1, R2 - 1.0M
Q1 - J309, J310, or U310 R3 - 120 ohms
Q2 - J309 R4, R6 - 10K
Q3 - 2N2222, 2N4401, MPS6521, or BFQ19 R5 - 3.3K (estimated)
(see text) R7 - 22 ohms

Fig. 4 - Complementary Push-Pull Amplifier with

Single-ended Input Stage
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 The positive points of these two designs lower (Q1). This active load provides a very
can be synergetically combined and, with a lit- high load impedance for the Q1 source follower,
tle further modification be improved upon to which in turn results in better IMD performance
render a design that provides the needed IMD of the input stage.
and NF performance while at the same time
using parts that are readily available from com- The temperature compensation diodes of
mercial distributors. the KAA 1000 have been reinstated (D1 and
D2), and the output transistors Q3 and Q4 are
The first of these circuits is shown in Fig. biased class A so as to provide the highly
4. Here, the source load inductor of the KAA desireable IMD performace similar to that of
1000 has been replaced with a JFET constant the Lankford circuit.
current source (Q2), where resistor R3 deter-
mines the bias current for the JFET source fol- A variety of transistors are available for

Parts List
C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6 - 0.1uF Q4 - 2N2907, 2N4403, MPS6523, or
BFQ149 (see text)
D1, D2 - 1N914 or 1N4148
R1, R2 - 1.0M
Q1 - J309, J310, or U310 R3 - 100 ohms
Q2 - J174, J270, or J271 (preferred) R4, R6 - 10K
Q3 - 2N2222, 2N4401, MPS6521, or BFQ19 R5 - 3.3K (estimated)
(see text) R7 - 22 ohms

Fig. 5 - Complementary Push-Pull Amplifier with

Complementary Push-Pull Input Stage
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the output stage, and surprisingly the comple- squares, 0.10 apart on 1/16 G-10 epoxy
mentary pair of 2N2222 and 2N2907 delivers fiberglass, similar to FR-4), as shown in the
an OIP3 of +39.75dBm and an OIP2 of photographs of Fig. 6. For the circuit of Fig. 4,
+59.5dBm with 50mA of bias current. Signal the 3dB bandwidth is 30kHz to 74MHz and the
gain is -0.68dB, which agrees with PSpice gain is -0.68dB. IMD measurements show the
simulations. OIP3 and OIP2 to be +39.75dBm and
+59.5dBm, respectively. For the circuit of Fig.
The MPS2222 and MPS2907 are equiva- 5, the 3dB bandwidth is 30kHz to 91MHz and
lent to the 2N2222 and 2N2907 used for these the gain is -0.68dB. IMD measurements show
tests. The MPS6521 and MPS6523 can give the OIP3 and OIP2 to be +44.25dBm and
higher IMD performance due to their higher +68.5dBm, respectively.
current gain, and the BFQ19 and BFQ149 can
be biased to higher current levels to give even The IMD performance of these two circuits
higher IMD performance. These devices are is suitable for active amplifier applications and
all readily available from distributors such as can be further improved by way of using higher
Mouser, where the MPS2222 and MPS2907 current devices such as the BFQ19 and
are less than $US0.10 each and the BFQ19 BFQ149 for the output devices, while the gain
and BFQ149 are available for less than and NF are both improved upon over that of
$US1.00 in quantites of ten or more. the Lankford circuit. Both circuits both make
use of readily available components, and even
The output of this amplifier is modified by if the more expensive BFQ19 and BFQ149
using a single resistor between the emitters of transistors are used, the parts cost is still less
the output transistors, and a pair of capacitors than $US4.00.
is used to couple the output to the coaxial ca-
ble. DC power may be provided through the
cable by way of a large inductor, such as was
done in the KAA 1000, or a simple 1:1 wide-
band transformer.

A second circuit is shown in Fig. 5, where

the active load in the circuit of Fig. 3 is replaced
with a complementary depletion mde P-chan-
nel JFET (J271 preferred), so that the two in-
put JFETS are complementary dynamic loads.
Make careful note that the drain of the P-chan-
nel JFET is connected to ground.

The bias current for this stage is control-

led by resistor R3. Capacitor C3 couples the
two JFET sources together. All other aspects
of this circuit are identical to those of Fig. 3.

Prototype Construction
and Testing

Prototypes of the circuits of Fig. 4 and Fig. 6 - Prototypes for Circuits of

Fig. 5 were constructed on Ivan board (0.80 Fig. 4 (top) and Fig. 5 (bottom)

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 Fig. 7 - HE010 Active Rod Antenna Amplifier

The HE010 Active Rod a push-pull Darlington output stage, which pro-
Antenna Amplifier vides better linearity by way. Biasing control
circuitry is also included that maintiains a con-
An interesting active antenna amplifier trolled output stage biasing current over tem-
worth considering is the HE010 Active Rod perature. Overall, this is a high-quality product,
Antenna manufactured by Rohde & Schwarz but the push-pull Darlington configuration of the
(3). Shown in block diagram form in Fig. 7, the output stage combined with the current sens-
amplifier consists of a single-ended JFET in- ing resistot R5 negatively impacts the dynamic
put stage similar to that of the KAA 1000, and range of the output stage.

Fig. 8 - Modified HE010 Active Rod Antenna Amplifier

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 Parts List
C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6 - 0.1uF Q6 - 2N2907, 2N4403, MPS6523, or
BFQ149 (see text)
Q1 - J309, J310 (preferred), or U310
Q2 - J174, J270, or J271 (preferred) R1, R2 - 1.0M
Q3 - 2N2222, 2N4401, or MPS6521 (pre- R3 - 100 ohms
ferred) R4, R6 - 100K
Q4 - 2N2907, 2N4403, or MPS6523 (pre- R5 - 2.2K (estimated)
ferred) R7, R8 - 470 ohms
Q5 - 2N2222, 2N4401, MPS6521, or BFQ19 R9 - 10 ohms
(see text)
Fig. 9 - Practical Adaptation of the Modified HE010 Active Rod Antenna Amplifier

This shortcoming can be remedied by by way of the DC voltage drop across the base-
employing complementary Darlington pairs in emitter junctions of Q3 and Q4, which allows
the output stage, as shown in Fig. 8. Compar- the signal voltages driving the base terminals
ing this ampflifier with those of Fig. 4 and Fig. 5, of output transistors Q5 and Q6 to approach
the intermediate stage transistors Q3 and Q4 closer to the supply rail and ground, respectively.
replace the temperature compensating diodes
D1 and D2, retaining the desireable tempera- Another commercial product, the Clifton
ture compensation scheme and at the same Laboratories Z1501D, employs a configuration
time retaining the higher gain and hence better similar to that of Fig. 8, using a single-ended
linearity as with the HE010. In addition, the intermediate stage in place of the complemen-
dynamic range of the output stage is increased tary pair Q3/Q4 (4).
beyond that of the amplifiers of Fig. 4 and Fig. 5

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 Fig. 10 - Complementary Push-Pull Amplifier with Complementary
Push-Pull Input Stage and Independent Biasing

Biasing Improvements Even-Order Distortion

Improvements
A number of builders have encountered
difficulties with the complementary JFET input The purpose of adjusting the biasing of
stage of Fig. 5. First, if higher biasing currents the JFET input stage has been primarily to im-
are desired the biasing feedback resistor R3 prove the IMD perforance, specifically to reduce
diminishes to zero, often before the desired bi- the second harmonic and even-order IMD prod-
asing current is achieved. Second, some im- ucts. Although this can be done to some de-
provement in IMD performance can be ob- gree of satisfaction by way of adjusting R3 and
tained if the biasing currents of JFETS Q1 and R4 in Fig. 10, the improvement can deteriorate
Q2 are independent. These circumstances can over temperature and frequency.
be remedied by using separate biasing resis-
tors for the two JFETS, but they are generally Since the reduction of even-order distor-
small in value and result in adverse loading of tion products is a result of having both JFET
the JFET sources, which results in degraded transistors develop equal and opposite distor-
IMD performance. tion products, a more general solution would
be to detect the imbalance between the two
As shown in Fig. 10, adding a two-wind- devices and use a negative feedback loop to
ing 1:1 wideband transformer allows for this automatically reduce them.
biasing arrangement without degrading the
IMD performance of the input stage. The val- Referring to Fig. 11, a 1:1 transformer T2
ues for resistors R3 and R4 are in the range of is added to the circuit of Fig. 10, through which
330 to 820 ohms. The remaining parts values pass the drain currents of Q1 and Q2. By con-
are similar to those of Fig. 5. necting the two windings in reverse signal

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 Fig. 11 - Complementary Push-Pull Amplifier with Complementary Push-Pull
Input Stage, Independent Biasing, and Even-Order Distortion Feedback

sense, the difference between the signal cur- T1 of fig. 10. Now, the amplified error signal is
rents of Q1 and Q2 will result in a difference coupled to the sources of JFETs Q1 and Q2,
signal voltage at the gate of the added JFET resulting in a substantial improvement in the
Q7. When in proper balance, the signal and balance of the two devices and a subsequent
odd-order distortion products will cancel and reduction in the even-order distortion products
the even-order distortion products will be conducted to the output stage.
summed, resulting in an error signal.
The push-pull complementary Darlington
The negative feedback loop is easily com- output stage of Fig. 9 can be added to Fig. 11,
pleted by adding a third winding to transformer and the full circuit is shown in Fig. 12.

References

1. -----, Erzeugnisunterlage Aktive Stabantenne KAA 1000 Typ 1557.28 (Equipment Docu-
mentation Active Rod Aerial KAA 1000 Type 1557.28), Funkwerk Kpenick, Berlin, July
1982 (copies in both German and English are available on eBay from the seller Klaus-
Dieter Brunn of Berlin).
2. Lankford, D., Simplified Complementary Push-Pull Output Active Whip Antennas, 7 Dec
2007 (online publication)
3. -----, HE010 Active Rod Antenna Manual, Rohde & Schwarz, Radiomonitoring and
Radiolocation Division, Munich, Germany, 30 September 1998.
4. Smith, Jack, Z1501D Active Antenna Instruction Manual (revised), Clifton Laboratories,
Clifton, Virginia, 8 September 2010.

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C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7 - 0.1uF R1, R2 - 1.0M
R3, R4 - 100 ohms
Q1, Q7 - J309, J310 (preferred), or U310 R5, R7 - 100K
Q2 - J174, J270, or J271 (preferred) R6 - 2.2K (estimated)
Q3 - 2N2222, 2N4401, or MPS6521 (pre- R8, R9 - 470 ohms
ferred) R10 - 10 ohms
Q4 - 2N2907, 2N4403, or MPS6523 (pre-
ferred) T1 - 1:1:1 Wideband Transformer (Mini-
Q5 - 2N2222, 2N4401, MPS6521, or BFQ19 Circuits T622 may be used)
(see text) T2 - 1:1 Wideband Transformer (Mini-Circuits
Q6 - 2N2907, 2N4403, MPS6523, or T1-1 may be used)
BFQ149 (see text)
Fig. 12 - Complementary Push-Pull Amplifier with Even-Order Negative Feedback

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