[AMRadio] Relay K5 in BC-1T

[sbjohnston at aol.com]

K5 in my Gates BC-1T was an Amperite 115 VAC glass-envelope, 
octal-based time-delay relay with one normally-open contact.  It was 30 
seconds delay, so that would be  a 115NO030.  I found that both time 
delay relay coils in the rig are actually running on 230 VAC (as are 
all the control circuits) with a 6k resistor in series to drop it to 
115.

While I was restoring my rig, I found the contacts on K5 "bounced" upon 
make, so it would have an irregular start-up time and would sometimes 
bounce three or four time before finally settling down.  To fix the 
problem, I pulled the relay, wrapped it in a towel, and smashed the 
glass.  Then I burnished the contacts, tested it, then glued a small 
bottle upside-down in place of the original glass.

I found 30 seconds to be a bit long for the low-voltage enable delay, 
so I ended up replacing the Amperite with an octal programmable 
solid-state timer relay I had on hand set to 15 seconds.  The K4 relay 
for the HV enable delay was excessively long too, a couple minutes as I 
recall, so I ultimately moved the 115NO030 to the K4 socket to become 
the HV inhibit TD relay.

Steve WD8DAS

sbjohnston at aol.com
http://www.wd8das.net/
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