SLOP BUCKET QUESTION,

[K7NCR]

What do you fine folks think of the Hallicrafters HT-32B SSB TX? I can pick one up pretty cheap.
Norm Palin K7NCR

[W3RSW]

Nice. I saw one and similar in latest "ER" I think. For $150 great deal.

[Opcom]

My elmer used one for years. the ceramic-mica trimmers in the neutralizing circuit? have 600v on them? as he said, and can sometimes pop. That was the only repair I ever knew him to have done. He also would twiddle a carrier balance knob to put it on USB+carrier which was a nice feature.

[ka3zlr]

The 32B series is a nice machine grab it....while you can, they draw big dollars on the scalper market...keep in gud shape you'll recover a decent reward...

[Rob K2CU]

Any of those great phasing type exciters, liek the HT-32 or HT-44 are a good way to experiment with H3E. If you add an amp, you can do 375W carrier plus 375W peak in the one sideband. You will sound 6dB louder than DSB AM. You would have to have a 1500 Wat carrier DSB AM rig to get that nmuch power in one sideband.

[N0WVA]

That was my first real transmitter. Its the "cadillac" of Hallicrafters transmitters. Mine was in excellent shape, then I traded it to a friend for who knows what. I gave $125 for mine around 1994 at the Joplin hamfest. Pair it up with a HQ170 and you got a fine slopbucket set-up. The 32b was a filter rig, the 37 was phasing, and I had one of those,too.

I want another 32b.

[Tim WA1HnyLR]

It seems that some of you do not realize that the HT32 series of transmitters makes REAL AM. The audio is deliberately hnyellaphied in the low level audio circuitry. Fattening up coupling capacitors and either pareing down or removing audio roll off bypass caps will open the audio response up quite a bit. I recently did up an HT 32 for Glenn N1YTN. It was the early model with the so called diode modulator. It took careful tweeking of the carrier balance controls to null out the carrier. I also made use of an unused fron panel jack( headphonium monitor) for a high level audio inpoot. I ran a piece of audio cable directly to the topside of the microphonium gain pot. I could directly patch in my processed audio from my usual audio chain. The audio reports I got were spectacular.  I did have a failure with the trimmer cap in the plate circuit of the 12BY7 driver stage. Shorted to ground. Another problem is that the PA tubes ARE NOT cut off during standby. There can be a runaway situation with the 6146s that could cause all kinds of problems. I placed a resistor in series with the bottom end of the bias pot the got shorted out when going into transmit mode to bias the PA tubes into conduction. In standby mode the bias voltage went to -70 volts which cut off the PA and driver tubes.Another thing to do is to solid state the high voltage supply. During standby the plate voltage soared to 1100 volts. The pair of 220 K bleeders  will not draw enough current to keep the HV supply voltage within limits. I placed a capacitor of .03 mfd @2000 volt rating across the filter reactor therefore creating a parallel resonant circut @120Hz.The supply voltage went down to about 880 volts or so with just the two 220 K bleeders . Amazing! The unused rectifier fillament winding may be wired in series with the 115 volt primary of the transformer to allow cool operation at 120VAC. I do not know how many versions of the HT 32 have been manufactured. About 30 years ago I modified an HT32 that used a 7360 beam deflection tube as the balanced modulator. This is a far better more stable means of  DSB generation than the diode modulator used in the HT32.The HT 32 is one of the best kept secrets when it come to looking for a high fidelity capable exciter grade transmitter to drive a linear amplifier with for AM service.Another fine point is the VFO stability is exceptionally good for a vintage transmitter. Oh! by the way it works very well on slopbucket too. You can always use it to tell some brain dead slopbuckeer ,Hey the frequecy's in use!! De Tim WA1HnyLR

[WBear2GCR]

Great cast metal front panel... magnificent classic Hallicrafters styling.

Do we need anything more?? 

             
         _-_-WBear2GCR

[Carl WA1KPD]

Fantastic looking rig.... But no 160 mtrs