----- Original Message ----- From: "David Knepper" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Discussion of AM Radio" <amradio@mailman.qth.net> Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2004 9:53 AM Subject: Re: [AMRadio] 6BE6
> Interesting experiment is put a variac on your receiver to see how low you > can go without affecting performance. I have found that I can go to 100 AC > on my Collins without any serious degradation of performance. > > Just my two cents worth. > > Dave, W3ST > Publisher of the Collins Journal > Secretary to the Collins Radio Association > www.collinsra.com I have, also, run the equipment with a variac, but at the risk of opening a long discussion, I researched operating AC voltages of most equipment I own. What I have found is that even the old equipment is designed for operation at 115-117 VAC input. Now the power company uses a 10% tolerance which means the upper voltage can be up to 130-132 volts and the lower is, of course, 100-104 volts. Below 100 volts is considered a brown out, above is considered a spike. Considering the equipment manuals specs, that is within tolerance. So if that is a fact, the equipment should not suffer from voltages above 125 volts. I have an RCA power line monitor that I calibrated at line voltage at a previous location that I just plugged in a couple of days ago. At its peak, the AC line voltage was 130 and the low was 126. At the previous location the voltage ran about 121 volts. I called the power company and talked to the head lineman who told me on rural drops they run the voltage at 127 peak. I told him of my findings and he sent the lineman out who measured the terminal voltage at the meter. I now see 127 volts on the monitor at peak and about 123 volts at low. He explained they have steppers on the transformers and they could be set to different voltages and if the measured voltage was above 127 they would reduce it, and they did what he said. I asked him to step it to about 124-125 but the guy evidently didn't want to do that. Now if I can just believe the equipment manuals I should be in better shape. I sure hope they aren't wrong like the 6BE6 manufacturers. 73 Jim de W5JO