[Amps] Clipperton L issues

[Ryan Foster]

I second Alek.  I had a clipperton at one time and did the same thing once
accidentally thinking I would do damage, and it did nothing.  After that, I
didn't do it a lot, but from time to time when running at full out for
longer than I thought that I would be running for when I tuned upI would
switch it back down to lower voltage.

I don't remember the model of the gonset amp that is just like the clipperon
that I have now, but I do the same thing with that one, and have never had a
problem (well, because of that.  The band switch on that one doesn't like me
much)

--Ryan w8cya

On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 5:53 PM, Alek Petkovic <vk6apk at bigpond.com> wrote:

> G'day Ken.
>
> Hope you changed your pants.
>
> I just looked through my manual for the Clipperton L and it makes no
> mention that you shouldn't do what you just did. It has a number of
> warnings but not that one.
>
> Looking at the power supply circuit, I can't see that any damage
> would be caused by switching from ssb to cw or vise versa, whether
> the amp is keyed or not. I do it all the time on my home brew
> 3-500Zamp which has the same sort of hv power supply.
>
> The only possibility that I can see is that your mode switch was
> indeed faulty and you somehow had both taps switched at the same
> instant which would have shorted the high voltage portion of the
> secondary to cause that big bang. You say that your voltage is now
> lower. You may have some damage like shorted turns somewhere on the
> secondary winding that was shorted. Check your transformer first and
> foremost.
>
> Your filter caps may be on the way out but I reckon this is a normal
> thing for an amplifier of this vintage and I don't think this is in
> any way related to your underwear soiling event.
>
> 73, Alek
> VK6APK
>
>