Damn!! - never mind, problem solved.

[AF9J]

Well, I think I've went and done it now!!  Last night, I heard some activity on 1885, so I decided to tune the Viking II up on 160, and give a few calls. Well, I had the hardest time getting it to dip and load properly - until I realized that I had the bandswitch on 80m!!  Once I realized my goof, I got things to load up OK, but it seemd kind of odd that I was only getting about 60 or 70W of carrier.  This morning I put the Viking II back on 75m, for the Midwest Classic Net, that meets on 3885. For the life of me, I could not get it to load to the manual's procedure.  The gird current was non-existent at anything less than 4 on the drive control, at which point, the plate current was wayyyyy too high (at least 300mA).  Even then, the best I could get was about 30W of carrier, instead of the more usual 105 or 110W of carrier.  So I ended up having to use my high band AM rig - my Yaesu FT-301SD, that uses collector modulation (yep, the signal chain in AM goes through none of the stages, past the driver transistor, to produce AM [it goes an audio amplifier stage, and then to the intermediate,10W amp and finals), at a whopping 35W of carrier!

Now, when I was performing my 160m tuning goofs on tthe Viking II last night, I had the 160m tuning capacitor engaged, while the bandswitch was on 80m.  My suspicion, is that I trashed the 6146s (grrrrrrr! in all my years of using tube rigs, I've never trashed the finals).  It could also be the 6AQ5 buffer going, but considering the timing of this failure, I have a feeling it's the finals.  What do you, the esteemed, AM Forum peeps think? 

73,
Ellen - AF9J

P.S. - this really throws a monkey wrench in chatting with the Heavy Metal
Rally participants tonight! 

[W3NP]

Can you get 4 ma or so of grid drive at any setting of the drive level control? Leave the HV off and just try and tune the driver section of the rig. Also, if you can get 300 ma of Ip your finals are still capable of good conduction.  For now, just try and get the Ig. Try it on other bands as well, just leave the HV off.

[AF9J]

Yes, I can easily get over 5 mA if grid drive, but it's with the drive control at about  3 1/2 or 4.  When I do that, the plate current is over 300 mA.  If I go to finals tuning, where it says to set the drive for 100 mA of plate, and then dip and laod unitl you get 200 mA of plate current, I can dip well enough, but I can't load to 200 mA to save my life.  When I go look at the grid current at that level of drive, it's zero.   Ahhhh Geez!!!  I've had the blasted thing on 3885 for so long, that I forgot that the drive is supposed to be advanced until you get 5 or 6mA of grid current!  I just read this in the manual.  Sorry about that!!  False alarm!!  I looks like I'm OK.

73,
Ellen - AF9J 

[KB5MD]

What's that old saying about "Forest for the trees...? Glad everything worked out okay.  73's

[Tom WA3KLR]

Attached is my Viking II cheat sheet:

[w8khk]

That cheat sheet for the Viker is a cool idea, Tom.  I think I will make a chart for my Valiant before I put it on the antenna.

I did something similar for my dentron tuner settings.  Every 10KHz for 75m, and every 20KHz for 40M, I charted the initial settings for my dipole using the MFJ 259.

 Presetting the tuna, and setting all the transmitter variables close reduces on-the-air tune up time, and preserves the toobs.

[AF9J]

Attached is my Viking II cheat sheet:

VERY nice!!  Thanks Tom!!     I've saved it to my files.  That will definitely come in handy!

73,
Ellen - AF9J

[k4kyv]

That's what I like about triode finals.  Set the grid drive to the nominal value with the plate voltage turned  off, and then turn on the plate supply, dip the final and adjust the loading.  Then recheck final for resonance and fine-adjust the loading for proper plate current.  The grid drive may drop back a little, but applying plate voltage to the triode final doesn't suck all the initial grid drive away.

[KR4WI]

Tom:  Thank You, I printed it also and will put on the wall. Matthew KR4WI

[Tom WA3KLR]

Ellen and Matthew,

You're welcome.

[W9GT]

Yup....a good "cheat sheet" or more favorably described...Table of Settings..will be a life saver many times.  When you're running ancient boatanchors like my old Federal transmitter, it is a necessity, unless you want to experiment all day trying to rediscover the proper settings for each band.  I have charts made up for my amplifiers and antenna tuners as well and they have been very valuable for (re) adjusting gear after changing bands, or just being away from them for awhile and having a "senior moment" when trying to tune-up.

73,  Jack, W9GT

[flintstone mop]

That's the fun from this boatanchor stuff..........lottsa knobs to twist to make it work.

Fred

[Jim, W5JO]

That cheat sheet for the Viker is a cool idea, Tom.  I think I will make a chart for my Valiant before I put it on the antenna.

Excellent idea.  Use it like a preflight checklist in airplanes.  If you don't and pop one the the caps in the output side of the Pi network, or arc the bandswitch with too high a mis-match, you will be SOL.