[Johnson] Slightly off topic question concerning mercury vapor rectifiers

[Joe Yamond]

Hello,
This is slightly off topic but I'm sure many of you on
the list can assist me. I am restoring an old 813
transmitter and power supply built from QST in the
50's. I am having toruble with the power supply and am
wondering if I may have done some thing wrong, the
supply uses 2 816 MVR tubes and I had heard that these
tube filiments need to warm up completely before the
high voltage is turned on. Is there any truth to this?
Before found that out I was testing the power supply
and was turning on both the filiment power and HV
power and noticed the tubes would glow very brightly
and make some noise and then settle down to a lighter
blue glow. Voltage output was good but then the supply
started blowng fuses on the HV side. With the tubes
removed the fuse doesnt blow. Also during testing the
tubes were horizontal could this have caused them to
fail? And lastly is there a good source for
replacements of the 816s or are those solid state
replacements better.
Thanks in advance the help.
joe

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