Good evening; I had a few bad triplers lying around that I finally decided to attempt repairs on.
Using a Micor station in my shop as a test bed, I stripped the transistors out of some good 470-490 triplers and repaired two of the 450-470 units. Both units make about 2.0 - 2.2 watts output into my 8920a, once the filter slugs are tuned for the operating frequency. While the Motorola manual states output should be around 2 watts, it appears 2.0 watts is not enough to properly excite a 1713A power amp. I tried two different amps; one will not excite at all, the other will do about 10w out or so. I have a known good tripler that was originally in this station, and it makes about 2.6 watts, which drives both 1713 amps to 85w or so just fine. What should I be expecting out of a "good" tripler? The transistors I "stole" from the 470 triplers are the exact same part numbers as the 450 units, so I don't think the transistors are the issue. Are there any other components known to go "soft" in the triplers? Just to be sure, I tried a few different transistors in the two triplers, and the best I could ever get out of them is 2.0w or so. Eric KE2D
