New toy

[W9BHI]

Look what followed me home today!
A   T-368F.
Not working of course but complete and unmodified.
I removed the power tubes and packed them safely for the 200 mile trip home.
This should keep me busy for a while.

Don W9BHI

[W3GMS]

Don,

Congrats on your new acquisition!   My first contact with a T-368 was in the Army while stationed at FT Gordon, GA. which was the S.E. Signal School for the Army.  Right after I completed my military obligation, I had a chance to get one for $100.00 but at the time really was saturated from using it in military service.  Many years later I picked one up for $700.00 and still have it.  Jack Williamson of B&W fame told me lots of stories about the development effort of that transmitter including how they got the original contract from FT. Mammoth to build a replacement for the BC-610.  Pair that up with all the rest of the gear and you will have a ANGRC-26 Delta.

You will enjoy it very much.

Joe, W3GMS       

[ke7trp]

Thats a nice clean T3 Don!  Congrats and I hope you get it running soon!

C

[KD0HUX]

  NICE FIND IF I COULD BE SO LUCKY 

[flintstone mop]

Definitely a nice find if it is under $900.00
Built well and will make nice AM.
Seems to be a new interest in the T-3 lately.

[WA3VJB]

That's great, Don, you'll have lots of enjoyable hours on the air with your "T-3" and they're set up to be serviced when needed so that won't be too big a deal.

As you get into the exciter deck, by carefully aligning the stages you might be able to squeeze 15 meters out of it.  It's not rated in the book past 20Mc, but I could get my T368C through 15 meters with plenty of grid drive, no problem, once the driver deck was sorted out.  I've noticed some variation among examples of the Veeder-Root mechanical frequency readout, where the mechanism itself only dials so high.

One serious challenge is providing a very heavy 120VAC line supply to that beast.  There are start-up surges that will trip a household 15A branch, so think about a dedicated 20A service with some 12ga or even 10ga if convenient enough to pull to destination from the panel. The original T368 "Basic" model (no suffix letter) had a dual 120/240VAC primary on the plate supply.  They swap right in, and occasionally show up on the surplus market, like Fair Radio Sales, but the road trip or shipping makes it easier to just run a heavy AC line.

I would guess that the "audio" quality is way down your checkout list, but if you have interest in going beyond the space shuttle grade of audio, a quick and reversible way is to feed the grids of the 4-125A modulators with an external PA amp with some EQ.  I used a balanced low impedance run between the two, an Acrosound "linear standard" type of driver transformer.

There's a nice tie point on the underside of the output connector of the stock speech amp chassis. Lift the leads from the original and run some shielded cable from the external amp.  I put a small chassis mount connector in place of the "external drive" BNC connector on the front panel.

I used a 1948 Bogen with a pair of 807s and a modified EQ curve to boost the highs and overcome the tank C that otherwise attenuates treble response.  Sounded much nicer, and I simply pulled out all the tubes in the stock speech amp chassis.

[W9BHI]

Started to go through the decks and cabinet.
There is a broken ceramic standoff in the antenna relay assembly.
There is also an oil leak somewhere on the PS deck.
The cabinet had a thin slick of oil on the bottom.
I think it is a seam on the choke.
No oil coming out of the terminal seals on any iron or cap in mod deck or PS.
I might just Gunk the lower section of the cabinet and possibly the PS deck before getting into it.
It's too oily for me.
The sealed plate relay has been replaced with an open frame type.
I have the old one that has been opened up and had some welded contacts.
I have to configure some connections on the PS deck so I can get it powered up on the bench and find out why it trips the plate primary circuit breaker only in operate mode (original problem).
I will keep on plugging away.

Don W9BHI

[W9BHI]

Got the cabinet Gunked, rinsed and dried.
Nice and clean
Good news, The PS choke is not leaking.
After closer inspection both of the oil caps in the mod deck directly above the choke have been leaking.
Time to disassemble the PS and clean it up.
I will build a cap board with electrolytics to replace the leaky caps on the mod deck.

The fun never ends!

W9BHI

[ke7trp]

On the audio deck, some of those caps are low in value and do not see very high voltage, you can just put a replacement pair of caps under the deck. This is what I did. All of the voltages are listed but most of the supply is under what two 450 volt EL caps will support. 

Glad to see your choke was not leaking.  I sealed mine with black RTV around the base and edge seams.  I never saw oil again. Just make sure its very clean with alcohol, put on some gloves and apply the RTV. It will seal it tight and it will look clean.

I would go to a Russian vac relay rather than the open.  The price has come down on them and you can get them on the auction site with the base. 

C