NO MORE SS GEAR ON MY BENCH!

[Erik Mandaville]

Dr.Bill:

"It is beautiful! It reads like a book."

I agree, it is incredibly nicely done -- but probably not a 'kit' version. But, I have to ask, to what book are you comparing it?

Erik

[DizRotus]

DrBill-

The Mouse That Roared was a very funny movie, but we date ourselves (which, according to my late father causes blindness). I'll have to ask my 22 year-old son if he's ever seen it and, if so, what he thinks of it.

What is that impressive equipment that SFOGG posted? If it's been identified I missed it.

Like you, I like to work on and use tube gear, but that doesnt mean that I dont recognize the merits and limitations of both SS and tube equipment.

Many of the new versus old issues are the same for cars as they are for audio. One could open the hood of a 60s Chevy and see the ground. Things were easy to get to, which was good, because they often needed getting to. Open the hood on a current Japanese car and you cant identify, or get to, anything serviceable, which is OK, because they rarely need service.

The car in my avatar is a Rotus 8, which is like a Lotus 7 on steroids. It has a carbureted Buick/Rover 3.5 liter aluminum V8. It was easy to work on, which was handy because it needed to be worked on regularly. Every six weeks I had to pull the motor.

After selling the Rotus, on an impulse I bought a 97 Miata with every intention of putting a Buick/Rover 3.5 liter aluminum V8 into it also. The engine transplant never occurred. I quickly came to the realization that there is something to be said for a car that starts every time and does not demand constant maintenance.

Each car will get you from A to B. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. Neither is right or wrong; theyre different. The same is true of audio gear. It all plays music. There is no universally perfect path to high fidelity. While I prefer to tinker with tube gear and carbureted cars, Im not prevented from using, but not working on SS gear or fuel injected cars.

[sfogg]

"What is that impressive equipment that SFOGG posted? "

Marantz 10B FM only tuner. The wiring on it is even more impressive when you see it in person. The point to point is arranged sort of like in levels as it is pretty complex. That happens when you have 21 tubes and a CRT to drive.

If anyone wanted to see them more pictures at:

http://ackthud.com/shawnfogg/pics/10b/Marantz_10B_pictures.html

Shawn

[fini]

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On 6/7/2005 7:35:19 AM Erik Mandaville wrote:

Dr.Bill:

"It is beautiful! It reads like a book."

I agree, it is incredibly nicely done -- but probably not a 'kit' version. But, I have to ask, to what book are you comparing it?

Erik

----------------

I'm not sure, but I think he refers to "Hamlet" :

"10B or not 10B, that is the question..."

[jpm]

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On 6/6/2005 5:55:50 PM DRBILL wrote:

JPM,

All three kids, one after another, worked at McDonalds. Almost every Friday night someone would come in and try to order a Whopper or a tub of wings and legs. It was the wrong place. On the door of one of the quacks I visit it says "practice limited to orthopedic surgery". I wouldn't get hot if he refused to give me an eye exam.

Do you sort of see where I am going with this?

Thanks.

DR BILL

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No, I don't. Could you please be more vague?

[SilverSport]

I think you are knocking on a door that just won't open...I believe the Dr. meant that tubes are his speciality and no matter WHAT kind of SS gear we might discuss, his speciality is still tubes...The man knows what he likes and he's not about to change now...you can ask for a Whopper at McDonald's but all you're gonna get is a Big Mac...('cuz the Whopper is at Burger King... )

Bill

(by the way, these are MY thoughts on what Dr. Bill meant and not necessarilly his...YMMV)

[JJkizak]

I totally understand where Dr Bill is coming from. I have worked with tubes all my life and on some very exotic stuff. Tube equipment is almost a visual empathetic instantly recognizable assemblage of parts that form a total picture of understanding. The SS stuff are an assemblage of mysteries that somehow perform the same job as the tube stuff but I can't see the dam electrons moving. The largest tube I worked on was a 100Kw klystron, and yes it required a chainfall to install and several big time heat exchangers to cool it down. The tube was about 6 ft in length and about 18 inches in diameter and had two 3" coolant connections to the collector---oh oh, that means it might have been solid state. The collector was about 3.5 ft long and the inside of the tube was 3/4" in diameter. The collector was tapered so the electron beam would not burn a hole in it and had to dissipate 350 kw worth of power. The rest of the tube was about 6" in diameter (diameter set to the frequency used) and had 3 cavities (ceramic) that would let external cavities tune (modulate the electron beam) to start and re-inforce the power with huge coil magnets keeping the electron beam centered in the drift tube. These babies would crank out 75 kw at a 10 meg bandwidth 24/7.

Lets see, if I had 500 K-horns in parallel would that be cool or what?

I forgot what the original subject was. You know when nailing this tube/ss thing down where do you draw the technical line? Is it a tube or SS? How is it defined? Electron beam in a vacuum surrounded by a solid?

JJK

[Daddy Dee]

JJK,

Sounds like that's the mother of all vacuum tubes. What kind of gear used that big rascal?

[fini]

One last dumb comment and I will exit this thread:

Every time I see the title of this thread, I imagine Dr. Bill has decided to not do any more repairs for Nazi customers...

[seti]

ROFL

Those who do not cooperate will be tied up with piano wire.

[JJkizak]

DaddyDee:

The tubes were used in the FRC39AV tropospheric scatter system on the Dewline in Thule and Fox Main on a 600 mile link. Two transmitters in parallel at two different frequencies and one vertically polarized and one horizontally polrized. At the other end were 4 receivers, two vertically polarized and two horizontally polarized and each tuned to the frequency of its corresponding transmitter. Each receiver had a parametric amp on the front end and all of the receivers were combined at the audio level with a combiner ckt that would reduce the noise 3 db if the same signal was on all four receivers. AGC would bias the combiners so the best recever was doing all the work. Each receiver had a 60khz pilot which was derived from both transmitters from one modulator at the other end and each receiver was phased up on this pilot at installation at the IF level when the signal strength was good. One receiver was the prime and all the others were adjusted to it by adding cable (RG-58) to the IF link using Tektronics dual trace scopes. Loss of signal would cut off the combiner ckt of the marginal receiver. The parametric amps had a noise figure of 1.8 db at 400 to 960 Mghz with 10 meg bandwidth. The receiver sensitvity was typically -103 dbm for 20 db quieting with IF bandwidth of 3 megs. A threshold extension panel would cut in at the quieting point of the receiver to cut the bandwidth to 1.5 megs thus increasing the 20 db quieting to -106 dbm. Intermodulation distortion with full white noise loading was -55 db at all frequencies from 12khz to 300 khz.

I would love to have some of those parametric amps but they cost $50,000.00 at 1970 prices. The last price I saw on the Klystron tubes was about $44,000.00 each and sometimes we would blow 2 in a week.

There were 120 ft parabolic antennas at each end, one 55 ft ahead of the other for added diversity. (Quad diversity system.)The antenna angles were adjusted to just clear the curvature of the earth which was about 40 miles away if you were on a 1000 ft mountain. Most of the signal went into outer space but the troposphere reflected back a tiny amount of signal. The 120 ft antennas provided about 37 db gain of the transmitted signal and the same for the receive. Most everything now is done by satellite communications. At the time Bell Labs had come up with a super 9-feedhorn recieve amplifier system that was the cat's *** but the military said no and then junked the whole thing for satellite.

JJK