[Hallicrafters] Prices of Hallicrafters gear

[Roy Morgan]

At 11:50 PM 6/5/2006, you wrote:
>Hallicrafters HT 33A amplifier, less PL 172 tube,

John,

Please be seated.

If you look for new PL-172's you will find prices in the $800 each 
range.  Most likely, they will have been made in Russia or some such place, 
and likely will perform just fine.

Some years ago, I had a chance to buy an HT-33 at a hamfest. It seemed as 
if I could have had it for around $300. I passed it up because they weigh 
well over a hundred pounds, and my car was a long way off. I'm now glad I 
did not buy it.

The "PL", of course, means Pent Labs, the originator of the tube type and 
apparently the only manufacturer of it at that time.  At:
http://www.eham.net/classifieds/detail/171141
I find an ad from a year ago offering a new Penta Lab tube for $375.

At contesting dot com,
http://lists.contesting.com/pipermail/amps/1998-August/006091.html
I find a discussion about alternate tube type number (PL-8295 ), and 
mention that it was used only in the HT-33. This is not quite true, because 
the TMC company used it in one or two of their transmitters (the PAL-1K, 
perhaps, and the driver section of their 10 kw transmitter).  This poster 
mentions that there are "west coast dealers" who can sell you new or tested 
used tubes.  He goes on to comment on possibly converting the amp to 
another tube: "The conversion is quite the job requiring a new socket and 
tube. What your doing is just using the shell and ps for another amplifier 
you design into the cab (-inet)."

He quite rightly indicates that you are undertaking the design of a new 
amplifier if you change tubes.  This is not for the faint of heart or for 
the beginner in RF amplifier design, construction, and testing.

>SR 500 Tornado transceiver WITHOUT power supply.

You are in a similar situation with trying to build a power supply. I am 
not familiar with the Tornado, but I would expect that building a supply 
for it would be much simpler than converting the HT-33 to a different tube.

In the case of the TMC PAL-350 that I have one of without supply, there is 
a lot of important function lodged in the supply.  Plate and screen over 
current protection, bias supply, supply voltage switching for different 
modes,  and warm-up time delay are some I can think of.  The PAL-350 supply 
*looks* simple enough from the front, but there is a lot of stuff in there.

>  Electrical condition unknown and being sold "as is".

If I were considering these radios, I would decide on my dollar offer from 
the attitude that I was buying a collection of spare parts in the case of 
the HT-33, and an interesting challenge in the case of the Tornado.  Note 
that AES wants $81 each for the 8236  tubes but is out of stock!  (Does it 
use four of them?)

I hope these thoughts help you in deciding what to do.

Roy

- Roy Morgan, K1LKY since 1959 - Keep 'em Glowing!
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