[TenTec] Centaur

[Dave Kamp, KW0D]

Hi Paul!


Paul wrote:
>...By exceeding their recomendations of 550 mills plate current I
>have got around 500w out. I think almost 600 on one band. This is not my amp
>but the person that bought it is not very happy with the results (400w out
>and not 600W) as the book says. This does not speak very well for Ten Tec in
>my opinion. 

One thing I would look into carefully, Paul... is the possibility that your
meters aren't accurate... or perhaps your plate voltage is low for some
reason.  I've had that problem on other amplifiers, and some investigative
poking eventually turned up something.  Just as a suggestion, pull out the
manual and look at the section regarding AC power setup.  I'm not familiar
with the Centaur, but if it does 120/240, check to make sure that the
internal connections are correct for your configuration... and make sure
the connections are good.  I had a tired-feeling amp which had a
dual-primary (for 120/240 in) in which one of the primaries was making a
very poor connection, so it was running on essentially only one half the
input current capacity.  The amp seemed to suffer from poor dynamic
regulation, and I suspected a soft tube, but finding a discolored wire on
the terminal gave it away.  If the amp has a CW/SSB position (like the
Heathkits), check that, too...

>I had thought about buying a Centurian because I want the Ten
>Tec QSK. For you Centurian owners is this the same deal of only 2/3 the
>output of advertised or does it put out 1kw on cw like they say? Thanks 73

I've got a Centurian, and have no problem getting full rated power out,
without running too much drive.  It even runs very nicely on 120, but
requires a bit more drive when doing so.  Do note, though-  if you've had
recurring problems with high power amplifiers, try taking the amp to
someone else's shack.  If it doesn't like your shack, check out your amp
outlet's wiring... perhaps the socket, wiring, or circuit breaker is bad
(note that because they're thermal devices, breakers with poor connections
tend to get warm and trip even when they're not in overload).  Also, if
you're powering your amp through an extension cord, you're gonna suffer as
a result... the amp will be out-of-breath from the extension cord's
current-limiting nature.

DK  :-)

73's from KW0D Dave