I got a bit confused by your description.
The demod board claims that the nominal power at each LO port is 10dBm. So we want to give at least 16dBm to the (external?) 4way power splitter, but we only have 15dBm. As you said, the actual LO power reaching the FET mixier (PE4140) is the level of ~20dBm. But you said the requirement for the mixer is -7dBm. So are you proposing to reduce the LO level (slightly) than the LIGO recommendation because the minimum for PE4140 is -7dBm?
If that's the message, then I can say "yes". We supply 8~9dBm to the LO ports instead of 10dBm. I suppose the mixers don't care about this level of reduction.
Looking at my original post [40m ELOG 11817], the necessary modification is much larger than you have indicated in your post (as yours is the modification of my modification plan.)
If you do your modification you have to deal with the components rearrangement in the chassis. I think you can still accomplish it as you are going to remove an amplifier and gain the space from it.
The main RF line still has 5dBm Attn. How about to insert another 3dB power splitter there and create a spare 55MHz port for the future use?
Before doing any modification you should check how much the distributed powers are at the ports.
Also your modification will change the relative phase between 11MHz and 55MHz.
Can you characterize how much phase difference you have between them, maybe using the modulation of the main marconi? And you might want to adjust it to keep the previous value (or any new value) after the modification by adding a cable inside?
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