[ARC5] Hallicrafters S-38 - AC/DC sets.

[Robert Nickels]

On 11/17/2015 2:51 PM, Kenneth G. Gordon wrote:
> Wish I could find one or two of those.
Try the Triad N-68X, Mouser and others have them for around $16 ea., 
which is a few dollars more than the last ones I bought but still a 
heckuva bargain.      They're rated for 50VA which is still plenty for 
an AA5 and you get three windings with 1500V isolation to play with.

That's what I used when I converted an old AA5 BC radio to make my AA75 
AM rig, but I outboarded the B+ supply and because I was adding a 
transmitter I kept the original series filament string and just made 
sure it was isolated from the chassis to unload the transformer a bit.  
In fact, that project gave me the opportunity to really dig into the AA5 
design and understand how elegant it was.     It turned out to be pretty 
simple to remove all the floating ground stuff and with only a few 
wiring changes it can be made just like a regular transfomer-powered 
receiver, with the metal chassis connected to earth ground like I wanted.

Attitudes have changed with the times but in the intended wood or 
plastic enclosure with no exposed metal parts, the AA5 (or S-38) met the 
standards of the day, and the millions that were sold said something 
about the quality of the design.

73, Bob W9RAN