Back in the late 50's or early 60's (during my impressionable youth), CQ
Magazine ran a classic April article entitled "A 150 Watt Contest Special".
(In those days, virtually all Sweepstakes entrants claimed the under-150 watt
power multiplier, 1.5, although many ran MUCH higher power than that.)
As the article described it, the Contest Special -- a truly massive rig
-- ran 3000 volts to some tube or other, so the trick to getting the output
under "150 watts" (and thus qualifying for the multiplier) was to keep the
plate current under 50 mils. Trouble was, the meter kept reading much higher
than that ("due to all the RF leakage", according to the author).
After various bypass resistors across the ammeter failed to eliminate
the problem, a solution was finally found that compensated for all the RF
leakage and yielded the desired "150 watt" reading for the Contest Special:
a 1/2 inch copper strap soldered across the meter's terminals.
(This was all done tongue-in-cheek. But it's still a classic article;
I know, for example, it's been widely translated into Italian and Russian...)
73 de Walt, AC1O/4 "ac1o@delphi.com" "Multipliers Are"
>From McCarty, DK 'Dav" <DKMC@chevron.com Sun Jul 17 00:53:44 1994
From: McCarty, DK 'Dav" <DKMC@chevron.com (McCarty, DK 'Dav)
Subject: Terminology
Message-ID: <199407162351.AA04760@portal.chevron.com>
From: McCarty, DK 'David'
To: OPEN ADDRESSING SERVI-OPENADDR
Subject: Terminology
Priority:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
West Coasters use GAS,
East Coasters use SOUP,
Midwesterners adjust the SIZE OF THE WATTS*
Around here, we call it SMASH which has a certain resonance
with the terminology of the clandestine whisky still...
And is just as illegal.
73,
Dave
*(remember the Godzilla Products Amp video by the KCDXC, vintage
ca. 1982? By far the best spoof I've ever seen in ham radio. Wish I
could get my hands on a copy of it.)
David K. McCarty, K5GN
dkmc@chevron.com
|