John E. Coleman (ARS WA5BXO) wrote:
<>Not disputing any of what you said Bob.
I just remembered a funny situation where Otis, K5SWK, had some one
else at
his rig controls. The rig was and is single 833 modulated by a pair
and this
story was of many years ago. The person at the controls is now a
silent key
but I still won't mention his name. The story goes that Otis was down the
street buying cigarettes, beer or something, and this person was visiting
from out of town. Not realizing the rig had had a arc over on the tuning
capacitor, that is never experiencing anything of that size before, the
operator continued to talk while the big pole pegs melted the plate of the
833 in the final. The 833 had a hole burnt through the plate the size of a
half dollar after the circuit breaker on the house when pop. The funny
part
of this story is that that tube was a very good tube and continued to work
perfectly with out even a drop in grid current at full output. I ask Otis
if the tube showed any color and he said that he could not see the other
side but that on the side facing him there was no place for the tube
to show
color. He did change the tube later because he said that it was just too
weird to look at the grid and heater through the hole and not see the
normal
little red glow that was supposed to be there on the plate.
John, WA5BXO
Otis's rig, is the only rig I know, that could be operated with only 1
of the pair of 833's in the modulator lit up, and no one could tell the
difference.
His homebrew exciter was supposed to use a 4-65, but the only 4-65 he
had got damaged, or something, so he hastily lashed up an adapter plate
for a pair of 6146's. Those are probably the same tubes that are in the
exciter. His homebrew speech-amp uses a pair of 6146's in Class B, to
drive the push-pull 833's. Everything in that station was homebrew.
Oh, I don't mean he wound his own resistors, or blew glass to make tubes
out of, but you know what I mean.. gather up a bunch of parts, assemble
'em in such a way as to cooerce a butt-load of electrons out of the
wall, into thin air, and have 'em reappear at the other end intact,
again. Ah, the magic of Radio and homebrewing!
I know you know all about the station there, John... but not everyone
knows Otis' rig (or Otis, for that matter!) like you do.
Sure miss hearing that signal on the air. Sure will be good to get him
back on, soon.
--
73 = Best Regards,
-Geoff/W5OMR
