[R-390] BallaSeason's Greetings!

[Drew Papanek]

Hello All,

In the spirit of Ronnie's ballastless but functioning R-390A and of the 
ballastraffic coursing through this list at this time last year I offer the 
following Christmas wishes:

May Santa Claus bring each of you a big bag containing the following:

1. An inexpensive Chinese knock-off of the 3TF7 (I don't know of any)so you 
can pop that in your radio and save the "lifetime supply" of NOS you bought 
last year for speculative investment purposes.

2. Two 12BA6 and a gold paperclip.  Now demand for that tube can rise, 
supply can shrink and prices soar,befuddling owners everywhere of 
All-American Fives when they try to obtain their favorite IF tube.

3. A bit of wire and the "damn the originality" attitude to run the formerly 
ballasted tubes directly from the 6 volt line.  You can then save the 25.2v 
for more important things, like the PTO oven.  Remove the PTO inner can and
replace with a can of Pop 'n Fresh dough.  Turn on '390x and listen to the 
deafening silence for a while.  Open PTO and enjoy fresh baked cookies.

4. Two 3BA6 and a piece of wire to wrap around pins from one tube to another 
above chassis. A goofy no solder required combination of 2. and 3. above.

5a. Two short pieces of wire and a 12BH7.  You can sell the 12BH7 to your 
friendly neighborhood audiophool thereby funding about 1/3 the cost of a 
genuine NOS 3TF7.

5b. Same as 3a. except for 12BY7.  You'll then have your "designated driver" 
for the holidays.

6a. A 42 ohm 5 watt resistor.

6b. Make that a 20 watt so your fingers don't get burned.

7a. A simple silicon diode and a liking for controversy.  You can remove the 
#328 dialamps and the Veederoot will
still be illuminated by the brilliant glow from the PTO and VFO tubes. 
6BA6's of the world unite!  You have nothing to lose but your filaments!

7b. A 20 ohm resistor to stick in series with the diode and make those 2 
tubes blend back in with the crowd.

8a. LM317, bridge rectifier, resistor and a .1uF disc cap.  You can do Dr. 
Jerry proud by building his ready-designed AC regulator solution.  He did 
the hard work, you can put the true rms meter away.

8b. As 8a. but swap the bridge for a single diode.  You will provide 
validation to Jim Shorney (and to me with my silly computer simulations)of 
Jim's pulsating DC ballast regulator concept.  Jim and I will rest easier.

8c. Like 8a&b but add a big electrolytic, big heatsink, and poweresistors as 
suggested by Dave Wise. Along with your quiet well regulated DC current 
source you can increase the entropy of the unviverse at a slightly faster 
rate whilst heating up the innards of your radio.

9. Chuck's RFI filtered ballast box.  You can make a Rippel as you cruise 
the airWaves.

10. One of Dave Wise's sophisticated digital 3DW7 ballasTubesters he 
developed in a quest to quell
the hellacious high heat of 8c. above.  Rumor has it that he was approached 
by a couple of men in black who obtained a sample.  It is purported that the 
R-390 they installed it in is now so drift-free that they use it to verify 
the stability of WWV.

You could also put the name "Mullard" on it and sell for big bucks to an 
audiophool as a 3 volt version of their favorite 12 volt 12AU7/AX7 
frankentriode.

What I truly wish for all here is a new year of easy, carefree existence 
devoid of the unnecessary "ballast" that loads down so many of our lives.

BallaSeason's Greetings to all!

Drew

"Vicariously modifying and repairing R-390x through advice to others"

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