Hello,
I'm Jerry Kaidor, callsign KF6VB. Been a ham since high school - got
my first license in 1970. Always been a fan of QRO. Built my first
amp; four
6LQ6 tubes in an ARC-5 cabinet. Interests are homebrewing and ragchewing.
Esp like ragchewing about homebrewing :). One key to a good ragchew is
to be kind to the person at the other end - make sure he can actually hear
you. QRO is an important tool for that.
I've been off the air for 12 years, just got back on. Yay, the Internet
didn't kill off ham radio after all! There's actually activity out there.
Right now, I have three amps: two SBE SB2-LA and one Collins 30L-1.
Neither of the SBE amps are functional - one of them is low output,
probably weak tubes, the other one suffered a grid short. The 30L-1
OTOH works fine. No surprise there. I pulled it out of storage last
month, vacuumed and blew out all the dust, cleaned the switch contacts,
washed the tubes in running water, brought it up slowly on a Variac.
I might want to get something a bit beefier than the 30L-1 though. It's
great for sideband & CW, but unhappy on RTTY or PSK. Those modes are
just
too intense. Although I did read that somebody filled his with 572B's,
stuck on a muffin fan, and used it for RTTY contesting(!). I have a set
of
Taylor 572B's on order from RF Parts. Also, the little fan is a little
loud. There are many Collins parts available on the Net, but I haven't
found that fan.
I cannot unfortunately indulge in legal limit QRO at this time because
I only have one 110V circuit in the shack. As far as I know. Getting
220 up there will be difficult ( but nothing is impossible - it's all
just time & money ).
Another upcoming project is the SB2-LA's. They're just such cute little
boxes. 6LQ6 tubes are alas pretty expensive now. And you can't get
matched sets of 6. I do however have qty 15 6KD6 tubes. These are very
comparable to the 6LQ6's but with a hair more plate dissipation. They
have a different pinout and even a different socket. Ebay yielded up a
complete set of ceramic 6KD6 sockets for a good price.
It would be useful if I could sort the 6KD6's by gain. I have a TV-7D/U
tester and a set of compactron sockets made by Dan Nelson. I do not
however have any data for these tubes. Some of the settings are easy -
the filament voltage, the knobs that connect each function to the
appropriate pin. But I have no clue as to how to set up the "dynamic"
stuff. Time to
review tube theory!
- Jerry Kaidor, KF6VB
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