Tram Titan II...Carrier With No Audio?

[Crazy_D]

BTW, the 300ohm resistor you smoked is right on the relay contacts 3,7,11 so most likely this what a direct result of the relay cleaning and the relay not being in sync.

Here is a pic of my Titan 2 sitting on top of the Davemade 300 amp unregulated power supply (I have two of these, not using the other one at the moment, but together I have ran up to a 32pill with them in the past). The davemade supply fans remove all the heat from the tram and it runs barely warm, its awesome how stable and good it runs. The mic is a stock Tram Titan 2 desk mic with a D104 ceramic cartridge from a G stand custom mounted to front (I basically wrapped a bunch of electrical tape around the D104 head and the tram mic and now they hold each other together solid, this was the best aesthetic approach and it worked perfect). This mic is so much easier to use than a bulky D104 G Stand. I like the super easy talk lock on the tram desk mic. I handle the mic very carefully... Oh, BTW, I had to run a ground wire from the mic stand back to the rear of the radio screw, because I was getting RF feedback interference when I would turn on my larger amps, now with the ground clip its clean as a whistle on my output!


That amp next to the davemade power supply is a Blackcat JB-150A that I use for a pre-driver/modulator, it takes the 3.5w swinging 12-14 watts pep from titan 2 radio and makes it a 2 watt dead key swinging 25-35 watts talk and about 40-70watts whistle, such a perfect amp for this radio, the tube (8417) barely gets a workout, it runs at about 1/3 its power, runs cool too, this perfectly drives the next amplifiers in line (not in picture) with great commanding modulation, which the Davemade 300 amp power supply is running.....

 

[Crazy_D]

This morning I replaced the rectifier bridge in my tram 2 that runs all of the high voltages, which is a epoxied block made up of (4) 600v 750ma diodes, I replaced it with (4) 1000v 3000ma (3amp) diodes. This bridge is like 4 times the stock current rating. The things I noticed since I turn the radio back on was the speaker receive audio seems a touch cleaner (when I turn the volume all the way down I hear barely any ac ripple and there is no hum, which was more prevalent before with the stock diodes and capacitor can, so this cleaned things up. I gained another watt pep, which is probably because there is touch less voltage drop now due to the stouter diode bridge, I did not get a chance to take voltage measurements in RX and TX. The radio will now swing to 15 watts, which is the mark between the 14 and 16 on my meters. I was never able to get the radio to go that far on the meter before no matter what I did, not that it means much to me but I just wanted to point it out to you guys. When I first bought the radio, the radio would only do 10-12 watts pep, now with some preventative maintenance upgrades and mods done, I gained roughly 3 more pep watts and I did not even touch or tune the RF circuit, just some things around it that were bottle-necking things up.

BTW, removing the 6BA6 and 6BA7 tubes (look at my overview top pic for the locations of those missing tubes) for the SSB RX will save about 600MA of current draw from the power supply transformer 6.3vac secondarys. The radio still transmits on sideband but no more rx which is fine because there is no activity below channel 35 anyways.

The reason I am spending so much time and money into this radio is because the Titan 2 is my favorite cb base station besides the browning golden eagle mark 2. The Titan 2 has updates and newer parts over the previous am-only Titan and you can remove the Sideband RX tubes. I like the peice of quality "equipment" look of the Titan 2, whereas they went to a "home stereo" cabinet look with the Titan 2A, Titan 3 and Titan 4. I don't want a old wood grained stereo looking cabinet radio in my station. I had plenty of D201/A's over the years and the D300 which is not a real tram radio. The best sounding Trams are the Titan 2A and D201/A. I have never heard the Titan 3 or 4 so no idea. The trams that you and I own have the smaller/weaker 6GK6 tube which is rated at 1/2 power of the tube that is in the 2A, D201A. Since we can swap that tube out to the twice as powerful 6GM5 with a socket rewire and a cathode bias resistor change, the audio then will be up to snuff with the Titan 2A and D201/A units, and have a MUCH more simpler circuit! The Titan 2 is so simple compared to a D201 rats nest for example. Plus the 1960's was the BEST era for owning anything, cars/cb's etc because the best parts (nuvistors and collins filters, I would listen through those than any plastic radio circuitry that I own) and implementation went into effect whereas the quality went backwards into the 1970's with all the issues with mixing pcb's and tubes (heat) and then semiconductor issues (demise of the browning golden eagle mark 4). The D201's do more power, etc but I am not interested in that since I use lots of amps. So that is why I am so hyped up on the Tram Titan 2. Not worried about channels above 23 as all my local and skip activity is below 23 anyways and I have other radios. My other nice radio is a Browning Golden Eagle Mark 2 with Banana mic. I had owned all the brownings but I thought the mark 3 and 4 were problematic whereas I have had rock solid performance with the R27 S23 and the Mark 2 1960 browning radios, which were all true tube and no pcb's. My opinion is that the Browning and Trams of the 1960's are the REAL Browning and Tram radios.

 

[Eastside]

BTW, the 300ohm resistor you smoked is right on the relay contacts 3,7,11 so most likely this what a direct result of the relay cleaning and the relay not being in sync.

Here is a pic of my Titan 2 sitting on top of the Davemade 300 amp unregulated power supply (I have two of these, not using the other one at the moment, but together I have ran up to a 32pill with them in the past). The davemade supply fans remove all the heat from the tram and it runs barely warm, its awesome how stable and good it runs. The mic is a stock Tram Titan 2 desk mic with a D104 ceramic cartridge from a G stand custom mounted to front (I basically wrapped a bunch of electrical tape around the D104 head and the tram mic and now they hold each other together solid, this was the best aesthetic approach and it worked perfect). This mic is so much easier to use than a bulky D104 G Stand. I like the super easy talk lock on the tram desk mic. I handle the mic very carefully... Oh, BTW, I had to run a ground wire from the mic stand back to the rear of the radio screw, because I was getting RF feedback interference when I would turn on my larger amps, now with the ground clip its clean as a whistle on my output!

View attachment 16834
That amp next to the davemade power supply is a Blackcat JB-150A that I use for a pre-driver/modulator, it takes the 3.5w swinging 12-14 watts pep from titan 2 radio and makes it a 2 watt dead key swinging 25-35 watts talk and about 40-70watts whistle, such a perfect amp for this radio, the tube (8417) barely gets a workout, it runs at about 1/3 its power, runs cool too, this perfectly drives the next amplifiers in line (not in picture) with great commanding modulation, which the Davemade 300 amp power supply is running.....

I had the wire on the relay soldered on wrong....I fixed that and the relay started working again.....but that resistor I smoked allowed high voltage to go through and it smoked another resistor in the middle in the audio section.

 

[Crazy_D]

I had the wire on the relay soldered on wrong....I fixed that and the relay started working again.....but that resistor I smoked allowed high voltage to go through and it smoked another resistor in the middle in the audio section.

clarify audio section. Did it smoke another power supply resistor or something somewhere else? If you can take a pic and circle it I can tell you what you smoked.

 

[Eastside]

 

[Beetle]

Orange-green-red-silver = 3500 ohms, ± 10%. Looks like 2 watts.

 

[Crazy_D]

Orange-green-red-silver = 3500 ohms, ± 10%. Looks like 2 watts.

His picture must be tricking our eyes, The resistor is a 1.8K Ohm 2watt resistor. It is in parallel with a 4uf grey capacitor. This is on the output of the transformer audio circuit that drives into the AM plate/screen circuitry. This could be part of the whole audio issue in the first place, as like I said if you had a part in this pathway that was wearing out it could be the issue! Replace the audio section output resistor with a 1.8K ohm/2watt and the cap with a 4.7uf/150v (or higher voltage rating). Replace the black wirewound power supply resistor that smoked with a 300 Ohm 10 watt. Unless something else is amiss or a tube is still needing to be looked at, this theoretically should fix your problems and the radio should work fine. This is the easiest of all the tube base radios to repair and work on, given its simple circuitry.

 

[Crazy_D]

BTW, you can get all the parts from mouser. I would include some Type 47 bulbs on the order as its always good to have a few extra around.

My parts order came in today and I replaced about 30 capacitors so far! more to go, but that is another day. I recapped the audio mic, AF and power sections, RF power section. I replaced that 10/10/20uf cap and drilled it out, look below. This radio is AWESOME!

Here are the updated pics:


Where those two cap cans once where....

Bottom:


Here are all the parts I have replaced so far (the tubes are the SSB RX tubes, no use for those...) Some of those 0.001uf caps where 35-75%(!) out of tolerance! I had to retune the radios tune/load after I replaced the caps around the final tubes so keep this in mind.


Will update soon. Placing the order for the 6GM5 tomorrow and will have it next week. Cant wait to see what happens when I put it in circuit. Currently my on air audio reports tell me I have a nice full, warm full range sound, like a smooth broadcast sound mixed with plate bite sound. My room is empty so I get a loud commanding room sound to go along with my modulation and people tell me it sounds more "intimidating" or big-boyish if you know what I mean. Everyone says I have the best sounding radio on the air here in my area (everyone else is running plastic junk!), this will be interesting to see what that 6gm5 upgrade does.

 

[Eastside]

I gotta take a break...I think I breathed too much lead solder...phew

 

[Crazy_D]

I gotta take a break...I think I breathed too much lead solder...phew

I am done replacing parts until next week when my 6GM5 audio tube and 10w power resistor order comes in. I still have a bunch of other caps to do yet.

So far since I have replaced all these parts, I have noticed that when the volume is turned all the way down, I hear ZERO hum and almost zero ripple, this is the quietest titan 2 I have ever heard in these regards, and my speaker output audio is so clean and more present now than before. every titan 2 I have ever owned used to "crackle" from the speaker and have hums and buzzes or high levels of ac ripple when you turn the volume down.

Also, more on air audio report say my transmit audio have gotten more wide banded and sound more smoother and cleaner (I replaced circuit coupling caps), everyone says its a joy to listen too especially with the jb150a clicked on along with it.

My keydown squawk is gone too now.

I know this radio better today than ever before, been studying the schematics and internals every day here.

 

[Eastside]

What is yer handle and where are you located...I will listen for you?

 

[Crazy_D]

my member name is my handle. I am all around the 23 channels and I don't have a specific standby so tell me what channel you hang on and such and I will be waiting for conditions. I watergated this radio and amps again today and it sounds incredible, so much smoothness, fullness and depth but still retaining that upper frequency "bite". every time I key up anywhere I get people asking me what radio I am talking on and everyone knows I am on tubes because my modulation has that tuby warmth euphoric distortion sound to it when I am talking. you cant replicate that type of sound with a cobra/galaxy radio, I did have a Mbox 2 with a Kenwood TS850 and I was able to add the tube disortion with a 12AX7 plug-in but it would not give me the total package that you get with the real tube radio. I also rebuild those plastic radios and mic circuits or input into balanced modulator and I will take straight plate or heising modulation any day of the week.

 

[Eastside]

My standby is ch-20.
Yeh....I luv tube radios......wish i had your skill at fixing them.
I ended up buying a titan off this guy in detroit who rebuilds them....we met yesterday and I picked up my titan...it works and sounds great.....it does like the manual sez...keys 3 1/2 watts and has swing to 6 watts....came with d104 and a nice cover.
I now have 5 tram titans....2 working...3 not.

 

[Crazy_D]

I will look out for you on ch 20. where are you located? I know the guy you bought the tram off of. I am looking for schematics for the original tram titan for a final tube upgrade to boost the power to hopefully what I get from my titan 2, dead key about 3.5w and swing to 14-15 watts. It talks around 8-12 watts normally and goes to 14-15 watts on whistle.

My 6GM5 audio tube upgrade should be in either tomorrow or saturday so I will be installed and rewiring the socket and letting you know what that did. I am also replacing the 6br8a audio driver tube so I will do that first so I hear the change with the stock audio tube, and then do the swap conversion. I cannot wait!

For the tram titan, if I had the schematics and sams photofact I could upgrade the audio tube to a 6GM5 or 7591A and replace the output tube with 6146 or possibly a 2E26 (I have a spare and I am tempted at replacing the 5763 in my browning to the 2E26, I would also change the audio tube out in the browning to a 6L6GC, but the titan 2 is first and when I am done with that I will go the browning next). It is mandatory to do cap replacements on these radios so hopefully the titan you just picked up has some replaced parts in it.

 

[Eastside]

I am in south central MI.
Where are you located?
How did you get it to swing 15 watts?
Yeah...the titan I just bought has new caps n resisters.
He gave me a titan manual also.
I have a Titan II with the 6GM5....really mint....but needs re capped.