[HomeBrew] Grid-dip Meter Rebuild

[N2EY at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/21/05 4:58:32 PM Eastern Standard Time, n2lxm at juno.com 
writes:


> Dose any one have any thoughts on converting and old tube type Grid-Dip
> meter to Solid State?. 

Yes.

Don't. 

I have a Millen 90651 GDO that I purchased back in
> 
> High School, it still works well and I use it often on the bench. But now
> with the weather turning warmer I want to be able to use my Millen
> Antenna Bridge out side. And I am getting tired of pulling an AC
> extension cord out every time I want to play with the antennas. I
> purchased another 90651 from the " E " place, it has a bad power
> transformer, but I knew that went I purchased it. My idea is to strip it
> down, clean it up and rebuild it along the lines of the Millen 90652. I
> have found plenty of information on the 90652, schematic and parts list.
> It seems that the tuning capacitor is the same in all the Millen series.
> Any thoughts and idea's will be welcomed.

There was an article, I think in QST, about the development of the 90652. 
They had all sorts of headaches getting it to work right. They had to do lots of 
tricks to get a good clean dip and eliminate dead spots. 

---

One trick I've used for small amounts of AC is to use an old UPS as an 
inverter. Usually they are tossed because either the battery has gone bad or a new 
computer needed more capacity. If you're just powering a dipper or other small 
test gear, they'll run quite a while.

I also have a Heath vibrator supply that was meant for the Lunchbox rigs. It 
uses a voltage doubler, and the transformer secondary is pretty close to 115 
volts. So I tapped the raw AC and ran it to a socket. Small amounts of 115 
wherever there's a car battery.

73 de Jim, N2EY

73 de Jim, N2EY