[Amps] Plate Choke Values

[Eddy Swynar]

Good Morning All,

Am I missing something here...?

Extensive research here into years & years of ARRL HANDBOOKS, Bill Orr HANDBOOKS, and the internet have shed precious little light in the matter of optimum / minimum values of inductance for plate chokes in the B+ leads of our tube-type linear amplifiers.

Have a look-see yourself: in designs that feature amplifiers that only go as low as 3.5-MHz, you'll see chokes that range in value anywhere & everywhere from 200-uh, to 50-uh. On 160-meters, I've seen quoted values as high as 1.0-mh., and others as low as 200-uh.

Just what, exactly, is a "...minimum reactance" for a choke, on a given frequency band, to do its job effectively, anyway...? 

I know confusion can creep in in the form of the self-destruction of these parts if the hapless home brewer happens upon a band where there's self-resonance in the choke...but that issue aside, is this all some matter of "...by gosh & by golly black magic", or are there very real minimum standards & parameters that we should adhere to...? And if so, where are said standards published...?

I certainly can't find them via "...the usual" routes --- but again, I must be missing something here...

~73~ Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ