[Johnson] More Valiant Progress

[John Lawson]

On Sun, 27 Nov 2005, Kim Herron wrote:

> Hi again John,
>        Ok, before you condemn the tubes, get out the REALLY accurate ohm 
> meter and check your metering resistors.  I've never fouind any in either
> a Valiant or Ranger that were right.  If those resistors are off, your 
> current readings will be off and you'll condemn tubes that are just fine. 
> You also load the rig
> either too light or heavy depending on which way the resistors have moved and 
> again, you get screwed up.  Oh, BTW, some of these resistors are NICHROME
> wire, which make them look like a jumper on the terminal strip where they are 
> mounted. PITA!

   This good advice, thanks!  The 6146s are all NOS - 'A's in the finals 
and 'B's in the mod.  Throught this whole process I have been careful not 
to let the tubes get red - one finger on the plate switch all the time. 
So I think the tubes are OK - I'll give them another check on the Weston 
686 and see how they match.

   I don't know what the Valiant meter is, full-scale - anyone have the 
meter terminal value in mA (I assume)....  I might have this info buried 
in my Valiant Docs - or I could just put it in series with an mA meter and 
resistor.

   I know where the shunt jumpers all are - and have a nice Shallcross 
milliohm meter to check 'em with..

   Most of the 'problems' with the rig were cockpit error pure and simple - 
not so much from a lack of Method, but were caused by the failure to 
exercise Vigilance.


   I'm ordering new capacitors for the RF section tommorrow.


Cheers

John  KB6SCO