You never know what you're going to get. I bought this amplifier almost three years ago from an old friend trying to shrink his collection. I sold off the Browning and Tram radios in the mix, the ones that didn't need a full overhaul. This amplifier just sat the whole time since then, wrapped in bubble sheet waiting to be needed for something. The power supply got pulled out to test RF decks for customers, but the RF deck never did. Until now.
Sure enough, a power supply arrived with no amplifier to run off of it. It's a home-built clone of Drakes' L4PS, and I needed a L4 RF deck to test it. Naturally I won't plug in a high-power amplifier without looking inside first.
Got a surprise.
There should be a cylindrical "coaxial" capacitor in the divider's two round holes, bolted to the divider. The two solid-metal pillars I found in place were suspended in the holes pretty well, neither one would touch the grounded rim of the opening, until I removed screws from them.
I no longer have a good source for that style capacitor, but I do have susbtitute.
Got a deal on a box of these from a closed CB shop's inventory years ago. Not quite right, but it's the same kind of capacitor.
Just gotta get it mounted.
The right-angle bracket is a stock Keystone item from Mouser. We use it for other stuff. Didn't have a half-inch diameter flat washer with a #6 hole, so one edge had to get snipped from the 3/4-inch washer we had.
I'm still trying to decide if it's worth the trouble to plug the open space around the new caps. I suspect the back pressure under the tube sockets in this amplifier is too low to worry about losing air volume that should be reaching the tubes.
And if you know where to buy the original-type feedthrough capacitors it was built with, I'd love to hear about it.
Now it's time to see if the customer's power supply will hang in there and work.
73
Sure enough, a power supply arrived with no amplifier to run off of it. It's a home-built clone of Drakes' L4PS, and I needed a L4 RF deck to test it. Naturally I won't plug in a high-power amplifier without looking inside first.
Got a surprise.
There should be a cylindrical "coaxial" capacitor in the divider's two round holes, bolted to the divider. The two solid-metal pillars I found in place were suspended in the holes pretty well, neither one would touch the grounded rim of the opening, until I removed screws from them.
I no longer have a good source for that style capacitor, but I do have susbtitute.
Got a deal on a box of these from a closed CB shop's inventory years ago. Not quite right, but it's the same kind of capacitor.
Just gotta get it mounted.
The right-angle bracket is a stock Keystone item from Mouser. We use it for other stuff. Didn't have a half-inch diameter flat washer with a #6 hole, so one edge had to get snipped from the 3/4-inch washer we had.
I'm still trying to decide if it's worth the trouble to plug the open space around the new caps. I suspect the back pressure under the tube sockets in this amplifier is too low to worry about losing air volume that should be reaching the tubes.
And if you know where to buy the original-type feedthrough capacitors it was built with, I'd love to hear about it.
Now it's time to see if the customer's power supply will hang in there and work.
73
