The AM Forum

Phred sent me some pix of the new maul I thought i'd share. Gonna show some of them to the movers so they know how to deal with this 1300 pound bundle of joy. Others I've massaged a bit and wanted to post here.

IMHO, this shore is a purty transmitter.  :D  No blowers = no blower noise.

You're gonna hafta have an extra set of eyeballs to watch all those swinging needles!

Phil

you cant have too many meters on a radio transmitter. It's impossible.

What a beautiful rig Derbmeister.  Raytheon is my favorite 'trademark' (used to work for them, indirectly, Sesimic Service Corp., div. of Ray. out at the Nevada NTS)

... & would you look at that name plate.  Just gorgeous!

Man, I"m envious.

Oh, BTW, you name all your rigs 'Maul.'    Is this Maul 1, 2 or 3?  ;D

Maybe "RayBoy" or somesuch?

Yea, why were they so stingy with the meters?
If it was well built, they would have meters for filiment voltage and current for EACH tube!

Nothing better than a rig without any fans or blowers!

Brett

Derb,

Maybe it was mentioned in another thread, but is this the old N3WWL "Lowest Voice in America" transmitter?

If so, it sounded FB.    Was it converted to 75 / 40M too? 

If not, a couple of Vac variables and some work should get it on 160 - 40M too...

T

Derb,

What a beautiful transmitter, both in terms of condition and of style! If any manufacturer ever overbuilt an AM BC rig, it was Raytheon or Westinghouse. Take a look at a photo of a Westinghouse 50 KW AM BC rig sometime (I think the model was a 50HH or something) and you'll see what I mean; most impressive.

That is one hell of a clean machine. Use it and enjoy it!

73,

Bruce

maul is just a ghetto term for keying the rig - the "maul" is the carrier.  8)

slopbuckets be teh wood. illustrated as shown. That wood on that stump is a ignorant AM hatin slopbucket.

Tom: yes, this is the "lowest price in America" transmitter.  :D  It's good to go on 160 or 75.

Ya made my day bro!

SWEET!!!!!

Derb,
Best of luck with the transmitter.  I have been on the other side of the QSO with Jay, N3WWL many times when he had the beast on the air.   It should be pretty much of a plug and play piece of gear.  Its been interesting to follow it around as it has had quite a few homes.  Are you going to use it remote or will it be in the Ham Shack?  I remember when Jay had camera's on it for remote operation.  When is it expected to arrive?
Regards,
Joe, W3GMS

Wow that's a beautiful rig.  Looking forward to hearing it.

It's expected to arrive as soon as I can pay Phred for it in full and afford to pay some professional movers to get it here!!  :D
 
I'm gonna get it here as fast as a I can, but thats still probably not for a while. I'm describing it as a birthday present to myself and thats on April 25th. I'm thinking it will be here before then though. But a large part of that is gonna be how much I have to pay to get it moved.

It will be in the ham shack. I'll probably wind up sitting right next to it. That's where the 220 plug is.

This is incredible news, Derb! It'll be great to hear the 1400 pound 'baby' Raytheon back on the air making some sweet audio. Like Joe & Tom, I remember many a contact with Jay when he had it on the air and even did my best to talk him into keeping it when the time came to send it to a new home. It was working and sounding fab the last time I heard it, so you should have an easy time of it (once it's set up, of course).

BTW, heard you on 75 last night with WB4IUY who is maybe 10-15 miles ESE of here as the crow flies. You were strapping into NC in fine shape. The RA-250 will make you one of the big munkeys down this way!

Derb, I heard your rock-crusher signal here in HotLanta yesterday evening, I think you were in QSO with W9LRS and later with KA0ARA.  Your signal was the strongest of the three here.  Fine sounding rig!

Can't wait to hear that Raytheon STRAPPING!

Sure looks nice Derb. Enjoy.

Do you know who manufactured those beige colored xfmrs?

I have a pair of chokes from a Raytheon RA-5 and would like to know the spec. 

I loved that logo -- today's version stinks

That thar rig is a beauty, Derb. You have every right to out-smug the Flex guys now.  ;) I actually found a clip of Jay's RA-250 transmitter (yup, it's the same one) on wikipedia...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vintage_amateur_radio#AM_activity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vintage_amateur_radio#AM_activity)

Well Derb,
Sounds like you will have a nice source of shack heat. Now that you have a dozen rigs to build there will not be much space to heat.

yah, I will have to beggarz to wifey for more.  :P

I do not know who made the iron for Raytheon. Let me look in the  manual and see if I can get anything from the part numbers.

Dave: the manual states that the supplier of all the iron in the rig is Raytheon, except for the audio inpoot transformer which they list as UTC. Raytheon surely could have made that iron back in the day.

That is a beautiful rig. Could we have pr0n of the tank circuits?

all i got of that, Phred took the pix.

Wow Derb - Looks like there's enuff room in there to do the Moonwalk ... ;D

T

And so clean in there too. -no zorch marks or burnt cabinet.

Say Derb, need a bulb to put in yer socket?  ;D

My 813's by 572B's rig has a Ray. fil. xfor for the 813's so that's about as close as I'll get to Heaven.   So sad.

The quality of Raytheon transmitters of that period is unbelievable. The cabinet steel is probably twice as thick as any other, and they used a cabinet-within-a-cabinet design. The different chassis as seen in the photos are actually hung around the insides and top of the inner cabinet, allowing easy access for servicing, cleaning, etc. Even the trim is top quality.

Derb, I'm checking into some spare iron left behind when I removed the RA-1000 a few years back. If you're interested, I can let you know what, if any, is still available. From the pics, it looks like some of it is interchangeable between the two.

I cleaned that entire rig when it was in my possession, both inside and out.  It ran flawlessly for years.  Derb, notice the green wires with soldered clip lead ends on the grid input coil.  Those are on the most outward taps for 160 use and can easily be clipped to the most inward ones for 75.  The "Q" wasn't quite right for 75 but it operated perfectly.  If you have the will, you can rewind that input coil and make taps closer in to the center of the coil.  There is no need to move the taps on the output tank coil when changing between 75 and 160.  Just simply turn the swinging link, tune and load, and you're good to go.  I fed a 15 watt signal from a Kenwood 870 into the 813 driver which was configured for grounded grid broadband input by Mike, W2ZE.  There is a switch mounted on the front of the transmitter that can key the rig.  When I first installed it, I had to run upstairs to the shack to key the rig, then fly back downstairs to tune it.....didn't take long until that got old.  Also, Gary, W2INR built me a handy T/R switching box so I was able to use the 870 for a driver and / or a receiver.  Mostly I used it as a driver only, and used an R390-A receiver.  There is a variable on the front panel that I ran full open to give me 1500 volts, which allowed the rig to make a nice 300 watt carrier with PLENTY of audio head room.  I used a Behringer Ultra Voice Pro model VX-2000 mic preamp/ processor device along with  Harrris AM Limiter that I got from Paul, W3VJB on long term loan.  It went under his permission to Fred, so You may want to inquire about that with Fred and Paul.  The Behringer had plenty of gain to make that rig sing.  By the way, the rig is virtually silent until it's keyed and you hear that beautiful sound of the big contactor in there just reverberating through the cabinet.  Good luck with it and let me know if I can be of any assistance.  Whew, that was an old buzzard!

Thanks Derb.

thanks Jay, next step is to pay Phred and find out who I'm gonna get to move it down here. I think this is the last stop it's going to make. By any chance would you (or someone else) still have the crapped out motor for the swinging link? I'd like to get it rebuilt if it didn't get canned (which I assume it did) .  :(

I'm wondering how the rig would look with the ThermoWhore plate iron I have in it. That would be around 2100 volts best guess. I'm thinking it might fit.

That motor was gone when I acquired the rig.

After all these years, you still can't get me and my OM straight :P

Derb:
 I tossed that motor in the T - rash when I worked on it. Been rotting in the landfill since 2003. It's just link coupling, set it and forget it. The G-G 813 driver is what I use in my 833 rig. Simple, economical and easy circuit to drive with loads of drive for the 810's and easily accessible spares.

OOOPS............Sorry, Mike.  I don't get you guys cornfused, I just though the "Cue Ball" did that mod :o

Derb,
It's amazing how similar the tank network is to my 1941 Gates 250C1.  Nice to see push pull operation.  My 250C1 uses a pair of 810's modulated by another pair. 

Are you still moving forward with the HB rigs you started to build?  I know you were collecting parts for I believe 2 rigs.     

Joe, W3GMS

Cue Ball and Son of Cue Ball. Get it straight OM.

Bawldies all  ;D

Derb, here's a QSL fer ur files OM.  You can tape it in the back.
Not too many like this anymore.

oh yeah no change there. I still need a 40 meter rig. I'm going to finish building the 5-125B rig in the small 36" rack.

I have been taking apart the BC 375 tuning unit to get tank components for that. nice coils n caps ready to go.....

tnx Rick, thats a kool qsl. I might just have to photoshop that a bit and use it for myself.  8)

Hey Derb, I am happy for you.  What a good looking beast!  Have fun exploring it's nuances. 

73

Rich

That's a really cool QSL - just like a ham QSL. It even has the tube line up of the transmitter!

Yeah very cool card.
Very close to my calls -- and with Jay calling me W3VJB , well --
OK FINE !!!

---

Seeing those inside shots reminds me of the time we dismantled one in the rain under cover of darkness. But it was the big sister RA1000.  Steve almost got the components into his basement but we got intercepted and a lot of it ended up at my place instead, with most now gone on to good homes.

I'll have to lookup who has 'w3vjb,
 and if it's open,

 well...

"We're awaitin' "