75 gone long early JJ?

[Bill, KD0HG]

No problem hearing the east coast for the last half-hour and it's not
quite sunset here.

Have hoisted the antenny 50' to the top.

Break the Ghetto habit.
Will be CQing and listening around  3700, + or -.

[KA8WTK]

Bill,
  Heard you down around 3.675. REAL early for the band to go long. Those guys in Fla didn't seem to hear you.

Bill KA8WTK

[K1JJ]

Bill,

12:30 AM EST

I'm on the big '85 now with Tron, Robert, Buddly and a few others.

T

No problem hearing the east coast for the last half-hour and it's not
quite sunset here.

Have hoisted the antenny 50' to the top.

Break the Ghetto habit.
Will be CQing and listening around  3700, + or -.

[K0ARA]

Tom
 What happen last night Was listening to your strapping signal into Kansas City.... You said { The tubes look a little pink} and you were gone. I hope everything is alright.
                                                                       Mike/KA0ARA

[Bill, KD0HG]

Darn...The ONE thing in the shack that I can't do without failed..The mic preamp/processor. Very odd problem, it's motorboating at around 20 HZ and oscillating at around 25 KHz at the same time.. Looks like a good way to damage the transmitter, too. I've got a spare that I can put into service, but it's in storage too far away to get to this weekend.

[K1JJ]

Tom
 What happen last night Was listening to your strapping signal into Kansas City.... You said { The tubes look a little pink} and you were gone. I hope everything is alright.
                                                                       Mike/KA0ARA

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the report.

Yes, you're correct - I was running the 4X1's X 4X1's PDM rig.  I was testing it out - kinda a shake down run. All of a sudden the 4-1000A switch tubes started showing some color, then got brighter and brighter. The carrier dropped out.  I shut down and did some troubleshooting. Turns out that the high speed damper diodes that squelch the PDM spikes at the switch tube plate shorted out.   Gotta order a new set - about 30 diodes.... sigh. That is a dangerous transmitter to work on cuz the grid, screen and fil supplies of the finals float at full B+ HV. I can't see myself maintaining this thing as an old buzzard.  Sometimes I get big ideas, build them up and realize I've got a tiger ny the tail... HA!

Bill, sorry to hear about the oscillation. We'll do it again maybe next week.  I've been hit by a rash of minor crap outs this weekend - I know how you feel.

The band seems long tonight, so may get on in a bit with the 4X1 X 833A's rig. (At least that's working)

Later -

T

[WA1GFZ]

Tom,
Do you have a HV filter cap on the power supply side of the diodes?

[K1JJ]

Tom,
Do you have a HV filter cap on the power supply side of the diodes?

Hi Frank -

Yes, I have a 0.1 ufd in there dumping the energy into the power supply.

Just got off 3885. Big group in there tonight.  Seattle, WA west coast too.  Still going on.

T

[WA1GFZ]

Tom, Way too small. Imagine the energy stored in the filter when the switch tube turns off all wanting to go into a small cap. It is going to ring and swing.
10 uf would be a better value in parallel with it.

[k4kyv]

Saturday afternoon before going out for the evening I tuned across the longwave broadcast band.  The German station on 183 kHz was clearly audible about 45 minutes before sunset. Couldn't believe I was hearing a longwave signal out of Europe as far inland as TN, while it was still daylight and the sun was shining brightly.