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"Uwe" wrote in message ... The dips in plate current are nearly imperceptible and they are not aided by my 250mA full scale meter. They may be 2 or 3 mA. I tune with the help of my scope. The pi network should be able to match a wide range of impedances but it would help to connect a known resistive load. Five, 2-watt, 270-ohm resistors in parallel would be close enough. If you're getting a dip in plate current the circuit is resonating somewhere, and you say you've worked people, so it's putting some rf on the band. See if you're getting two dips. A lot of those pi networks would resonate on the operating band with the plate tuning cap almost completely meshed, but there was enough range in the cap that it would also tune to the second harmonic. If your LC meter is right you may be dipping at a harmonic, not the fundamental. OTOH, if your calculation of what the original coil was is correct, the plate tuning capacitor should resonate when its value is about 20 pF -- for a 22-uH coil. That doesn't mesh with the range of your plate tuning cap. A 2.7 uH coil would resonate with the plate tuning cap at about 185 pF, which seems more reasonable. This is one of those rare occasions when a grid-dip meter is handy. Is there a ham club in your area? Someone may have one to lend. Meanwhile, hook it up to a dummy load and see what you get. There's something else you could try, but I don't know how well it would work. With the AC-1 unplugged you could connect your receiver antenna to the top of the plate tuning cap and adjust the plate tuning cap while listening for a peak in the noise level. That would tell you the circuit was resonating at 7 MHz. If NG, try 20 meters and 10 meters. In the olden days I had a 6BE6 connected inside my Viking Valiant, such that it turned on and bridged the receiver antenna input when transmitted rf appeared at the grid. When the key was up, rf from the antenna passed into the receiver. This allowed for full break-in CW, and I could dip the plate tuning cap just by listening to the noise level. Real handy when moving around the band in a contest. You would probably pop the front end of a solid-state receiver doing this, so don't try it. The circuit was in an old Radio Handbook, which was edited by Bill Orr, W6SAI. That's what made me think that you could try this with your receiver, but exercise appropriate caution. You know, I think you can get coil forms to fit your rig from Antique Radio Supply, and also maybe Ocean State Electronics (oselectronics.com). You could even make one for 30 meters. Ocean State has a power transformer in their catalog that may do for a power supply for your rig, too. Or look for an old tube-type hi-fi receiver in a thrift shop or at a tag sale. If you're going to do, you may as well do it! : 73, "PM" |
Uwe wrote in message ...
in article , N2EY at PAMNO wrote on 4/5/04 18:59: In article , Uwe writes: I will just have to fiddle a bit more with the pi network (since at the B+ voltages suggested here my plate current would be way high) and I will have to live with the chirp. Are you getting a "dip" in plate current? If not, the coil is probably too large or too small. Unless you get a real dip, the output network isn;t right. I have used a very similar transmitter with 350 volts on the plate, and the dip is clean and pronounced. Jim, the original docs I got for this tx call, at 40 m, for a 15 turn coil on the coil form provided with the kit, which I hear was 1.25" diameter. If I use the formula for air coils this turns out to be roughly a 22 microhenry coil. 22 microhenries? I get more like 8 microhenries using the formula L = (a * a * n * n)/([9 * a] + [10 * b]) where a = radius of coil in inches b = length of winding in inches n = number of turns The coil which works best with my tx is 8 turns on a 1,125" ceramic core. But do you get a dip? Be aware that the AC-1 went through some changes in its lifetime. Some models used a filter choke, others did not. Some used a 730 uuf loading capacitor, others just a single-section 365 uuf one. Coils changed too. To get guess work out of it I just bought and built a L/C meter and measured my coil to have 2.7 microhenry. So I am way off, but it works, sort of. The air caps are 36 to 420pf at the plate and 15 to 728pf at the antenna, so that seem right. All this happens with B+200V and 35 mA plate current. LC = 25,330/(f * f) so for 7 MHz, the LC constant is 516. Your 2.7 uH coil should resonate with 191 uuf. Older ARRL handbooks give typical values for pi network for 50 Ohm antenna loads and my values are in range for the caps but my coil is too small. The ouput voltage on my antenna measured with a scope is up to 75 volts peak to peak, with a 50 Ohm load that would mean I get more out of the tx than I put into it and I am not of the sort who says this might happen. So my conclusion is, and tell me if this sounds right, that I have an antenna which is far from 50 ohm resistive at 40m and that that makes everything weird. That's defintitely part of the problem. What antenna are you using? Have you tried a resistor or lamp load? The dips in plate current are nearly imperceptible and they are not aided by my 250mA full scale meter. They may be 2 or 3 mA. I tune with the help of my scope. The meter tells more. You can use a pilot light (#47, 150 mA) instead of a meter. Sudden thought: Where is the meter connected? Are you reading plate current, or plate-and-screen current combined? Here's something else to try: Often trouble of this sort is due to the RF choke used. What RFCs are you suing, particularly in the plate circuit? Although the LC meter may say they are a certain L, in real life they may have all sorts of unwanted resonances. To test this idea out, do the following: - Remove the plate RFC - Connect the antenna end of the plate coil to the B+ where the RFC used to be connected. This point should already be bypassed to ground through a disk capacitor of about .01 uF - Disconnect the "loading" capacitor - Remove the plate coupling capacitor. What you will then have is the 200 volts being fed to the plate through the coil, with one end of the coil going to the plate supply and the other end connected directly to the plate of the 6V6. The plate tuning capacitor is connected between the plate of the 6V6 and ground. End result is no plate RFC and a parallel resonant circuit. There's no connection for an antenna yet, but that's not important right now. Test out the rig and look for the plate current dip. It should be very obvious because there is no load connected. This is just a temporary setup to see if the RFC is OK. 73 es GL de Jim, N2EY |
Uwe wrote in message ...
in article , N2EY at PAMNO wrote on 4/5/04 18:59: In article , Uwe writes: I will just have to fiddle a bit more with the pi network (since at the B+ voltages suggested here my plate current would be way high) and I will have to live with the chirp. Are you getting a "dip" in plate current? If not, the coil is probably too large or too small. Unless you get a real dip, the output network isn;t right. I have used a very similar transmitter with 350 volts on the plate, and the dip is clean and pronounced. Jim, the original docs I got for this tx call, at 40 m, for a 15 turn coil on the coil form provided with the kit, which I hear was 1.25" diameter. If I use the formula for air coils this turns out to be roughly a 22 microhenry coil. 22 microhenries? I get more like 8 microhenries using the formula L = (a * a * n * n)/([9 * a] + [10 * b]) where a = radius of coil in inches b = length of winding in inches n = number of turns The coil which works best with my tx is 8 turns on a 1,125" ceramic core. But do you get a dip? Be aware that the AC-1 went through some changes in its lifetime. Some models used a filter choke, others did not. Some used a 730 uuf loading capacitor, others just a single-section 365 uuf one. Coils changed too. To get guess work out of it I just bought and built a L/C meter and measured my coil to have 2.7 microhenry. So I am way off, but it works, sort of. The air caps are 36 to 420pf at the plate and 15 to 728pf at the antenna, so that seem right. All this happens with B+200V and 35 mA plate current. LC = 25,330/(f * f) so for 7 MHz, the LC constant is 516. Your 2.7 uH coil should resonate with 191 uuf. Older ARRL handbooks give typical values for pi network for 50 Ohm antenna loads and my values are in range for the caps but my coil is too small. The ouput voltage on my antenna measured with a scope is up to 75 volts peak to peak, with a 50 Ohm load that would mean I get more out of the tx than I put into it and I am not of the sort who says this might happen. So my conclusion is, and tell me if this sounds right, that I have an antenna which is far from 50 ohm resistive at 40m and that that makes everything weird. That's defintitely part of the problem. What antenna are you using? Have you tried a resistor or lamp load? The dips in plate current are nearly imperceptible and they are not aided by my 250mA full scale meter. They may be 2 or 3 mA. I tune with the help of my scope. The meter tells more. You can use a pilot light (#47, 150 mA) instead of a meter. Sudden thought: Where is the meter connected? Are you reading plate current, or plate-and-screen current combined? Here's something else to try: Often trouble of this sort is due to the RF choke used. What RFCs are you suing, particularly in the plate circuit? Although the LC meter may say they are a certain L, in real life they may have all sorts of unwanted resonances. To test this idea out, do the following: - Remove the plate RFC - Connect the antenna end of the plate coil to the B+ where the RFC used to be connected. This point should already be bypassed to ground through a disk capacitor of about .01 uF - Disconnect the "loading" capacitor - Remove the plate coupling capacitor. What you will then have is the 200 volts being fed to the plate through the coil, with one end of the coil going to the plate supply and the other end connected directly to the plate of the 6V6. The plate tuning capacitor is connected between the plate of the 6V6 and ground. End result is no plate RFC and a parallel resonant circuit. There's no connection for an antenna yet, but that's not important right now. Test out the rig and look for the plate current dip. It should be very obvious because there is no load connected. This is just a temporary setup to see if the RFC is OK. 73 es GL de Jim, N2EY |
"N2EY" wrote in message om... This is just a temporary setup to see if the RFC is OK. My recollection is hazy but I seem to recall that when the loading cap was open too far for the load the pi net was seeing, the dip got very shallow. I'll bet his antenna is outside the range it can match. Time for Uwe to gather up some of that coil-winding stuff and make a tuner. 73, "PM" |
"N2EY" wrote in message om... This is just a temporary setup to see if the RFC is OK. My recollection is hazy but I seem to recall that when the loading cap was open too far for the load the pi net was seeing, the dip got very shallow. I'll bet his antenna is outside the range it can match. Time for Uwe to gather up some of that coil-winding stuff and make a tuner. 73, "PM" |
in article , N2EY at
wrote on 4/6/04 12:29: Uwe wrote in message ... in article , N2EY at PAMNO wrote on 4/5/04 18:59: In article , Uwe writes: I will just have to fiddle a bit more with the pi network (since at the B+ voltages suggested here my plate current would be way high) and I will have to live with the chirp. Are you getting a "dip" in plate current? If not, the coil is probably too large or too small. Unless you get a real dip, the output network isn;t right. I have used a very similar transmitter with 350 volts on the plate, and the dip is clean and pronounced. Jim, the original docs I got for this tx call, at 40 m, for a 15 turn coil on the coil form provided with the kit, which I hear was 1.25" diameter. If I use the formula for air coils this turns out to be roughly a 22 microhenry coil. 22 microhenries? I get more like 8 microhenries using the formula L = (a * a * n * n)/([9 * a] + [10 * b]) where a = radius of coil in inches b = length of winding in inches n = number of turns Well, the way I use the formula is 1.25*1.25*15*15/((9*1.25)+(10*0.45)) = 351.5/15.75 = 22.3 O.45 is the length of the 15 windings. Do I not use the formula properly?? My meter is built into my bench power supply (thats why it reads up to 250mA), so I am measuring plate and screen current. I put in a second meter which would only measure the plate current but its reading is practicly identical to the first one, as if there was no grid current. My antenna is a dipole of about 75ft. length each side, connected with a 50 ohm coax, no balun or such things. I will need a few days to try out some of the things you and also Paul suggested and it might really be a good idea to get an SWR meter and a tuner. All in due time and I will surely get back to you. Thanks for the help Uwe The coil which works best with my tx is 8 turns on a 1,125" ceramic core. But do you get a dip? Be aware that the AC-1 went through some changes in its lifetime. Some models used a filter choke, others did not. Some used a 730 uuf loading capacitor, others just a single-section 365 uuf one. Coils changed too. To get guess work out of it I just bought and built a L/C meter and measured my coil to have 2.7 microhenry. So I am way off, but it works, sort of. The air caps are 36 to 420pf at the plate and 15 to 728pf at the antenna, so that seem right. All this happens with B+200V and 35 mA plate current. LC = 25,330/(f * f) so for 7 MHz, the LC constant is 516. Your 2.7 uH coil should resonate with 191 uuf. Older ARRL handbooks give typical values for pi network for 50 Ohm antenna loads and my values are in range for the caps but my coil is too small. The ouput voltage on my antenna measured with a scope is up to 75 volts peak to peak, with a 50 Ohm load that would mean I get more out of the tx than I put into it and I am not of the sort who says this might happen. So my conclusion is, and tell me if this sounds right, that I have an antenna which is far from 50 ohm resistive at 40m and that that makes everything weird. That's defintitely part of the problem. What antenna are you using? Have you tried a resistor or lamp load? The dips in plate current are nearly imperceptible and they are not aided by my 250mA full scale meter. They may be 2 or 3 mA. I tune with the help of my scope. The meter tells more. You can use a pilot light (#47, 150 mA) instead of a meter. Sudden thought: Where is the meter connected? Are you reading plate current, or plate-and-screen current combined? Here's something else to try: Often trouble of this sort is due to the RF choke used. What RFCs are you suing, particularly in the plate circuit? Although the LC meter may say they are a certain L, in real life they may have all sorts of unwanted resonances. To test this idea out, do the following: - Remove the plate RFC - Connect the antenna end of the plate coil to the B+ where the RFC used to be connected. This point should already be bypassed to ground through a disk capacitor of about .01 uF - Disconnect the "loading" capacitor - Remove the plate coupling capacitor. What you will then have is the 200 volts being fed to the plate through the coil, with one end of the coil going to the plate supply and the other end connected directly to the plate of the 6V6. The plate tuning capacitor is connected between the plate of the 6V6 and ground. End result is no plate RFC and a parallel resonant circuit. There's no connection for an antenna yet, but that's not important right now. Test out the rig and look for the plate current dip. It should be very obvious because there is no load connected. This is just a temporary setup to see if the RFC is OK. 73 es GL de Jim, N2EY |
In article , Uwe
writes: in article , N2EY at wrote on 4/6/04 12:29: Uwe wrote in message ... in article , N2EY at PAMNO wrote on 4/5/04 18:59: In article , Uwe writes: I will just have to fiddle a bit more with the pi network (since at the B+ voltages suggested here my plate current would be way high) and I will have to live with the chirp. Are you getting a "dip" in plate current? If not, the coil is probably too large or too small. Unless you get a real dip, the output network isn;t right. I have used a very similar transmitter with 350 volts on the plate, and the dip is clean and pronounced. Jim, the original docs I got for this tx call, at 40 m, for a 15 turn coil on the coil form provided with the kit, which I hear was 1.25" diameter. If I use the formula for air coils this turns out to be roughly a 22 microhenry coil. 22 microhenries? I get more like 8 microhenries using the formula L = (a * a * n * n)/([9 * a] + [10 * b]) where a = radius of coil in inches b = length of winding in inches n = number of turns Well, the way I use the formula is 1.25*1.25*15*15/((9*1.25)+(10*0.45)) = 351.5/15.75 = 22.3 O.45 is the length of the 15 windings. Do I not use the formula properly?? You used the coil *diameter* where you should have used the coil *radius*. A coil with diameter of 1.25 inch has a radius of 0.625 inch. Compute 0.625*0.625*15*15/((9*0.625)+(10*0.45)) = and see what you get. My meter is built into my bench power supply (thats why it reads up to 250mA), so I am measuring plate and screen current. I put in a second meter which would only measure the plate current but its reading is practicly identical to the first one, as if there was no grid current. That's odd. My antenna is a dipole of about 75ft. length each side, connected with a 50 ohm coax, no balun or such things. 150 feet total length? That's not resonant on 40 meters, and your SWR with 50 ohm coax is probably quite high. A half-wave 40 meter dipole is about 66-67 feet long (33 feet each side), and will have a fairly low SWR on 40 meters when fed with 50 ohm coax. The next length that will give a fairly low 40 meter SWR is about 205 feet overall (102 feet each side). Such a dipole is one-and-a-half waves long. These are "ballpark" figures, not exact ones. How high is your dipole? I agree with Paul Morphy that a simple dummy load is best for testing. His suggestion of paralleled noninductive resistors is excellent. I will need a few days to try out some of the things you and also Paul suggested and it might really be a good idea to get an SWR meter and a tuner. That will work, but first get the rig working correctly into a dummy load. All in due time and I will surely get back to you. If it takes me a while to respond, it's because I'm away from the computer. Thanks for the help You're welcome. 73 de Jim, N2EY |
In article , Uwe
writes: in article , N2EY at wrote on 4/6/04 12:29: Uwe wrote in message ... in article , N2EY at PAMNO wrote on 4/5/04 18:59: In article , Uwe writes: I will just have to fiddle a bit more with the pi network (since at the B+ voltages suggested here my plate current would be way high) and I will have to live with the chirp. Are you getting a "dip" in plate current? If not, the coil is probably too large or too small. Unless you get a real dip, the output network isn;t right. I have used a very similar transmitter with 350 volts on the plate, and the dip is clean and pronounced. Jim, the original docs I got for this tx call, at 40 m, for a 15 turn coil on the coil form provided with the kit, which I hear was 1.25" diameter. If I use the formula for air coils this turns out to be roughly a 22 microhenry coil. 22 microhenries? I get more like 8 microhenries using the formula L = (a * a * n * n)/([9 * a] + [10 * b]) where a = radius of coil in inches b = length of winding in inches n = number of turns Well, the way I use the formula is 1.25*1.25*15*15/((9*1.25)+(10*0.45)) = 351.5/15.75 = 22.3 O.45 is the length of the 15 windings. Do I not use the formula properly?? You used the coil *diameter* where you should have used the coil *radius*. A coil with diameter of 1.25 inch has a radius of 0.625 inch. Compute 0.625*0.625*15*15/((9*0.625)+(10*0.45)) = and see what you get. My meter is built into my bench power supply (thats why it reads up to 250mA), so I am measuring plate and screen current. I put in a second meter which would only measure the plate current but its reading is practicly identical to the first one, as if there was no grid current. That's odd. My antenna is a dipole of about 75ft. length each side, connected with a 50 ohm coax, no balun or such things. 150 feet total length? That's not resonant on 40 meters, and your SWR with 50 ohm coax is probably quite high. A half-wave 40 meter dipole is about 66-67 feet long (33 feet each side), and will have a fairly low SWR on 40 meters when fed with 50 ohm coax. The next length that will give a fairly low 40 meter SWR is about 205 feet overall (102 feet each side). Such a dipole is one-and-a-half waves long. These are "ballpark" figures, not exact ones. How high is your dipole? I agree with Paul Morphy that a simple dummy load is best for testing. His suggestion of paralleled noninductive resistors is excellent. I will need a few days to try out some of the things you and also Paul suggested and it might really be a good idea to get an SWR meter and a tuner. That will work, but first get the rig working correctly into a dummy load. All in due time and I will surely get back to you. If it takes me a while to respond, it's because I'm away from the computer. Thanks for the help You're welcome. 73 de Jim, N2EY |
Jim, after my calculation of the coil were wrong I thought it was about time
to check everything and I did and to try and distinguish between radius and diameter... Using the L/C meter I wound a proper coil, I checked the calibration of my plate current meter, I did a more thorough check of the grid current (it is between 1 and 2 mA) and so on and so forth. And I did connect a dummy load (even though they don't respond or send out QSL cards when you tranmit into them). None of the thing did make any real difference and the dip, the elusive dip, was in the order of magnitude of maybe 2 mA, nearly impossible to see on my meter. Then I changed the circuit around as you suggested, testing the RFC and I got a dip the likes of which I had never seen. The meter went slowly from about 30 mA to 50 mA and then dropped to about 25 mA, I couldn't miss it. But what does it mean. I gather my RFC is not ok. What is wrong?? I used a Series 4590 high current filter inductor I had around, it has the Digi Key number DN 4528. Happy about the dip but still not clear on the deeper reasons... 73 Uwe Here's something else to try: Often trouble of this sort is due to the RF choke used. What RFCs are you suing, particularly in the plate circuit? Although the LC meter may say they are a certain L, in real life they may have all sorts of unwanted resonances. To test this idea out, do the following: - Remove the plate RFC - Connect the antenna end of the plate coil to the B+ where the RFC used to be connected. This point should already be bypassed to ground through a disk capacitor of about .01 uF - Disconnect the "loading" capacitor - Remove the plate coupling capacitor. What you will then have is the 200 volts being fed to the plate through the coil, with one end of the coil going to the plate supply and the other end connected directly to the plate of the 6V6. The plate tuning capacitor is connected between the plate of the 6V6 and ground. End result is no plate RFC and a parallel resonant circuit. There's no connection for an antenna yet, but that's not important right now. Test out the rig and look for the plate current dip. It should be very obvious because there is no load connected. This is just a temporary setup to see if the RFC is OK. 73 es GL de Jim, N2EY |
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