I have many of these MOSFETS in my rigs. Yesterday I came across Paul Harden NA5N's excellent Handiman's Guide series. It had this really wonderful paragraph about the history of this part. I-R is the International Rectifier company.
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4 hours ago
The IRF510 switching-type MOSFET is perfectly suited for HF power and is rugged and inexpensive. I bought mine from Frank ex-K2AW back in 1984, did some math, and had them on 80 and 30 meters CW. The ARRL asked about doing an article-but only if Dave,K1ZZ's favorite band, 40 Meters was included! The article "Three Fine Mice" [1] came out (Dec 1986,QST) and 300 kits were put together by Stas at A&A Engineering, all sold-out. Sprat and QRP Quarterly covered it,too.
ReplyDeleteI had seen other MOSFET RF articles, but as far as I know, mine was the first to use the IRF510 for HF RF power.
Since then, operation to 10 meters and improved process generations of IRF510 with still better RF performance, even though spec are the same. Not bad for a part that is still available for 40+years! Just beware of the fakes!
73!
WN2A
[1] Title credit goes to Paul,N1FB. Thanks!