if that is a moduation reactor, you indeed have a treasure. They are
exceedingly hard to find. Typically they are nothing but a huge choke,
30-50 hy's, 1 amp or greater for current. You can put them in the secondary
of your modulation transformer along with a oil filled capacitor and take
the
HV off of the mod tranny. I've been looking for one for a while, and I
think
I have one located now.
Mark's descriptions sounds more like a mod TRANSFORMER than a reactor.
Wonder if the specs mention whether or not the secondary is designed for DC,
or if it requires a separate reactor?
Mod reactors shouldn't be that hard to find, with all the retired tube-type
broadcast transmitters that have been replaced with solid state units. Some
hams have converted these rigs to operate on the ham bands, while many are
simply parted out, and no doubt many have simply gone to the landfill or
metal scrap yard.
Inductance may range from less than 20 hy to as much as 100 hy, and current
rating as low as 250 mills to several amps, depending on power and
voltage/current ratio at the final.
A good rule of thumb for inductance is a minimum of 8 henries for each 1000
ohms of modulating impedance. For example, a kw transmitter running 2000
volts on the final @ 500 mills operates at 4000 ohms modulating impedance
(Z=voltage/current). You would need at least 32 henries @ 500 ma. A
30-henry unit would be close enough.
Less than optimum inductance results in loss of low frequency response.
Some hams simply series up several power supply filter chokes, but that
tends to be unnecessarily bulky. Power supply chokes may have too much
capacitance, or the iron may be lossy at high audio frequencies, causing
loss of high frequency response. In that case, find a low-inductance choke
(0.5 to 2 hy) at the appropriate current rating to put in series with the
main reactor, on the final amplifier side. The small one will take over as
the reactor as the larger one becomes non-functional at higher audio
frequencies (kind of like the woofer/tweeter combination in a speaker
system). At lower audio frequencies the smaller reactor adds negligibly to
the total inductance.
I haven't run dc through a modulation transformer since the mid 60's. Even
a transformer designed to carry the dc will function better if a reactor is
used.
Don K4KYV
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