[Johnson] Slightly off topic question concerning mercury vapor rectifiers

[Gary Schafer]

Joe,

Only operate them in the vertical upright position.
Any time you move those tubes, turn them on their side and back up
again, you should let them warm up a couple of hours before applying HV.
>From then on a couple of minutes warm-up is enough.

73
Gary  K4FMX


Joe Yamond wrote:

> 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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