Topband
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: Topband: Gamma match success

To: Tim Shoppa <tshoppa@gmail.com>, Herbert Schoenbohm <herbert.schoenbohm@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Topband: Gamma match success
From: David Olean <k1whs@metrocast.net>
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2018 14:39:18 +0000
List-post: <mailto:topband@contesting.com>
I would echo Tim's remarks. I bought a bunch of Russian caps on EPAY for a 160 meter amplifier and they overheated and changed value.  One blew up. They were horrible as a plate coupling cap. The seller advised me that they were only good for uncritical bypassing chores.  Now I have a pile of caps that are only good for target practice.

Dave K1WHS


On 10/16/2018 5:55 PM, Tim Shoppa wrote:
I would caution against using Russian military surplus doorknobs, or
Chinese doorknobs, in a tuned circuit without understanding their
dielectrics.  I tried a couple and was very disappointed.

With HEC 7.5kV doorknobs, you would want to make it out of values of 170pF
or below. Below 170pF they have NPO characteristics.

Tim N3QE

On Tue, Oct 16, 2018 at 1:46 PM Herbert Schoenbohm <
herbert.schoenbohm@gmail.com> wrote:

Unless you use LMR 600 or Andrew heliax a cap made from standard RG-8 or
213 has its limitations. eBay has a ton of high current fixed caps very
close to the value you need.  Some are from Ukraine (Russian military
surplus) and are very inexpensive.  You might also consider a home-brewed
sandwich cap made from aluminum plates and Teflon insulation between them.
This method of heavy duty fixed caps seems to be the vogue of many present
amplifiers and tuners.  Another alternative is to get a handful of 5KV
doorknob caps at 100pf and add them in parallel or series until you come up
with the value you need.

Good luck

Herb Schoenbohm, KV4FZ

On Mon, Oct 15, 2018 at 5:18 PM Richard (Rick) Karlquist <
richard@karlquist.com> wrote:


On 10/15/2018 10:43 AM, Tree wrote:

I replaced the variable cap with a home made cap using RG8.  I had one
Sometimes, capacitors made from coax are lossy.  I modeled your
coaxial capacitor using Simsmith (very easy to do) and the Q turns out
to be 340, if I did it correctly.  So the coaxial capacitor gets a clean
bill of health and probably doesn't have anything to do with
your broad bandwidth.

Rick N6RK
_________________
Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband

_________________
Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband

_________________
Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband


_________________
Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>