Take care in Re-Tubing your Linear... KLV 1000 Re-Visited! ;

[High Miler]

Hi All,

Well after the growing pains the KLV 1000 has been very, very good to me... Alot was learned and if I had to re do it again knowing what I know now, I most certainly would re-order the KLV 1000 with some good tubes.

I replaced the weak Yugoslavian EL-519 Tubes... These tubes are ONLY made by EI now ... (Yugoslavia) and are purely junk... They are not what should have been put in these amps...

I put American Tubes in and have watched the output come up some 300 Watts more, I have pounded the heck out of the linear yet still keeping a 1 1/2 Watt Carrier... But letting the radio swing wide open...

The dreaded "Pop" has not been experienced... And I have gotten the linear plenty warm on high power... Alot of the blame as I have come to find out lye in the cheap Yugo tubes...

American NOS Tubes... Search for the EL-509 ... NOT the EI EL519!!

World Famous Russian Tubes for those that want the best... I ordered 5 and am looking forward to trying them also.

With these 2 places above you can't go wrong re-tubing... The quality is definately there... My American Re-Placements were GE/Westinghouse tubes... Obviously NOS replacements (New-Old Stock)

For current production High Quality tubes you can't go wrong with the St.Petersburg,Russia tubes for sure...

Hope this dis-spells the myth of the cheap KLV and that if people do try them ... Re-Tube with good tubes... For a 1.5 KW linear (SSB) it's hard to beat the price, even if you have to re-tube it ... Once you do it will give you many pleasurable hours.

I'm glad I did the research on the tubes... And didn't give up on the KLV so fast.

 

[AMPOWER]

DANG!!! Glad you got it up and running

AMPOWER

 

[High Miler]

Thanks AMPOWER ... With alot of research on Tubes and why they were so prominant to popping ... That's what I came up with.

I didn't want to post until I was able to try out my theory, and SURE enough ...

I pounded the living life out of the tubes... Matter of fact the Russian Version claims a Carrier Input of 65 Watts!! Try that with the Yugo tube and find out what happens!

Everything is running great... I have the DeadKey set to 1 1/2 Watts on AM swinging 3-5 Watts ... They say Doubling RMS gives you 100% Modulation...

Whether this is the case or not... It's definately working with my radio... I want to put a bigger radio in line for bigger Swings... But on SSB I am constantly hitting the tubes with better than 20 Watts PEP ... The thing gets warm and keeps on Ticking!! I have been hitting about 1.3 to 1.4 KW on SSB without a Problem...

On the AM side I have been hitting about 650 Watts to 750 Watts .... With the Yugo tubes I was getting 500 to 600 Watts...

The Russian tubes... Their supposed to be even better, and I will give a report after I have tried them for sure!

Thanks all for the help!

 

[NorthStar]

KLV 2000's are way over priced H&Y sells them for $1500 they use 2 572B's most 2 572B amps I seen do about 1300-1500 Peak

 

[High Miler]

Yeah for that price I would go with an Ameritron I think... But a 1.5 KW $700.00 Dollar linear for 11 Meters is the ticket when you take care to tube it right and pay attention to the set-up...

I worked Ohio last night on SSB and he was over 70 Miles away!! Giving him about an s-7 to s-8 on his Galaxy Saturn... We were both on our Verticals... He had a Maco 5/8 and I was using my Imax 2000...

Anyway... Just pay attention to the tubes and set-up and it will work great for you.

 

[NorthStar]

Not bad.

 

[High Miler]

I took the Deadkey to 2 Watts today and the amp is Swinging to about 800 Watts RMS and PEP'ing 1400 Watts on SSB ...

A few days of this and than I will put the tube theory to rest for sure...

This KLV is performing flawlessly!

 

[Enterprise312ok]

The dreaded "Pop" has not been experienced

I need to know about this phenomenon.
I have just came across a klv 1000 that has popped a tube twice so far. 2 owners ago a guy was tuning it up on a new antenna and accidentally keyed full radio power in and no more tube. The last owner was talking on it I am not sure mode or conditions and popped another tube (probably driving it harder than he should but I am not sure).

My question should I invest in a set of tubes from that eastern European country in the news so much and what Issues other than bad grounds are common on these units?

 

[linearone]

most 2 572B amps I seen do about 1300-1500 Peak

Whut? Where can i buy a magic 572B?

 

[linearone]

I need to know about this phenomenon.
I have just came across a klv 1000 that has popped a tube twice so far. 2 owners ago a guy was tuning it up on a new antenna and accidentally keyed full radio power in and no more tube. The last owner was talking on it I am not sure mode or conditions and popped another tube (probably driving it harder than he should but I am not sure).

My question should I invest in a set of tubes from that eastern European country in the news so much and what Issues other than bad grounds are common on these units?

I think production stopped on these right around the time of the original post. Perhaps @nomadradio knows better.
My opinion, they were cool 18 years ago when they were cheap. But for perspective, an ameritron al811h was $900. Now its ~$1500.
Interestingly the cb market's customers have not adjusted with the market. Their mentality is that boxes are still stuck in 1996 prices.

 

[AudioShockwav]

Is it the 1000 or the 1000p?
The 1000 has one tube in front of the four to use much lower drive.
I think the P was 50 or 60watts drive , used 4 tubes and the other used 5 tubes and was 10 watts drive.

I think you can still get 509's for about $50.
If you look for tubes there is more than one version of the el-509, there are some smooth tops.

73
Jeff

 

[Enterprise312ok]

It Is the 1000 1x4. I see a lot of 6p45s tubes from Ukraine on ebay

 

[linearone]

It Is the 1000 1x4. I see a lot of 6p45s tubes from Ukraine on ebay

I mean, if it literally "just needs tubes" i might do it. But if i had it, spending 125-250 for a set of tubes to maybe get 700w on am... I dunno. A gi7b would make same power with that supply and they are $30.

 

[linearone]

My question should I invest in a set of tubes from that eastern European country in the news so much

Dont worry about that, i get stuff from there all the time. Packages get through no issues.

 

[nomadradio]

Never could get the 5-tube version to behave. Would explode the driver tube. Made it a policy that the only repair we would do was to convert the 5-tube to a straight 4-tube version. Still had plenty of output, especially with a two-final "black" radio like a Saturn or 2517.

Whatever it was that made the fifth driver tube unstable, the failure was so quick I just gave up trying to explain or remedy it.

73