One thing individual owners could do-if TT won't-is to place individual
pieces of teflon between the plates. Nye does this in the MB-V tuner (they
use polyethelene one or two of which I once burned up and replaced with
TFE.) It does work.
At 09:20 AM 12/14/96 -0600, Chuck (Jack) Hawley wrote:
>Ten-Tec Inc. wrote:
>>
>> Hello from Ten-Tec !
>>
>> At 11:06 PM 12/12/96 -0500, you wrote:
>> >Hello. I am the proud owner of a brand new Centaur. It is very VERY
nice amp
>> >- beautiful QSK on CW! It is a good size and looks nice sitting next
to my
>> >rig. I've received good signal reports on SSB, AM, and even FM on 10 m.
>> >
>> >I have one question though ...
>> >
>> >When I drive the amp in CW mode with 150 ma grid current and around 500
ma of
>> >plate current, the wattmeter flys off the scale when you switch to
"Forward".
>> > To get the forward down to 600 watts, you have to cut the drive way
back to
>> >around 75 ma grid, 250 ma plate. I'm only driving the amp with 70
watts or
>> >so from my transceiver.
>> >
>> >Is my meter calibration off? Anyone else out there experience this? Any
>> >thoughts?
>>
>> Yes, the wattmeter is out of calibration. If you don't have another
>> wattmeter to calibrate it against, tune it up for max. output on 20 or 40
>> meters into a dummy
>> load (you should be putting in a full 100 watts after tune-up). The
adjustment
>> screw (small phillips head) is accessible from behind the amp. It's a
small
>> hole
>> just below and left of the serial number.
>
>Two things......seems like it would be good to have a better calibration
>procedure during production since it didn't get misadjusted by itself.
>The other thing is the test report in CQ that went into great detail on
>how to avoid arcing of the tune capacitor in humid weather. I don't
>think the tune capacitor should be so easy to arc over. Isn't the
>voltage rating of the cap too low for the application?
>I am very sympathetic to TT and suffer with a few design bugs in the TT
>auto antenna tuner because I like the thing overall. And, one of these
>days I'm going to buy an Omni VI so that I have something to work on
>that is otherwise a better performer than mediocre rigs that work
>perfectly. But, I just don't think that the product review should lay
>the responsibility of an inadequate design on the guy who just paid for
>a brand new commercial amplifier. It may come down to the owner having
>to deal with the problem himself just as I have to with the brain
>damaged auto tuner, but not right out of the gate as Doug DeMaw did in
>his "review".
>So there....73.
>
>Chuck, KE9UW
>
>
>--
>FAQ on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/tentecfaq.html
>Submissions: tentec@contesting.com
>Administrative requests: tentec-REQUEST@contesting.com
>Problems: w9tw@contesting.com
>Sponsored by: Akorn Access, Inc & KM9P
>
>
72/73
Ed Tanton N4XY EMAIL: n4xy@avana.net TEL: (770)579-3933 V/MBX/FAX
189 Pioneer Trail, Marietta, GA 30068-3466
QRP-ARCI#7663 G-QRP#6779 OK-QRP#172 QRP-L#758 AdvRC#140
NORCAL#1779 NCDXF SEDXC
Life Member: ARRL AMSAT IDRA INDEXA QCWA URL: Coming Soon
"Think you can, think you can't: either way you're right!" Henry Ford
--
FAQ on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/tentecfaq.html
Submissions: tentec@contesting.com
Administrative requests: tentec-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems: w9tw@contesting.com
Sponsored by: Akorn Access, Inc & KM9P
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