Strange that you mentioned this, John. I almost posted about these wire elements earlier, mainly out of curiousity. The RA-1000 I picked up last September came with one of these for a dummy load. One mesh sheet or element, maybe 2-3 feet long by 1 foot or so wide. Surrounded by a metal frame with large porcelain stand off insulators on the corners for mounting. The engineer (Bob, also on this list) told me that this is what they used for a dummy load and I was amazed. Not only had I never seen one before, it's difficult to comprehend something like that handling a full KW carrier!
I take it they aren't as common as the non-inductive resistors that snap into those large clips? ~ Todd, KA1KAQ Amazingly enough that thing would easily handle 1kw carrier plus modulation for several hours! I had found this out one summer afternoon when a thunderstorm rolled through. Back in the "good ol days" when there was a receptionist at the station able to handle light duty button pushing should I be out of the station, a thunderstorm knocked the Raytheon off the air. [The Raytheon was -the- main transmitter....sounded much better than the McMartin that was used as a back-up] Instructions were that if a thunderstorm was nearby, the back-up transmitter was to be put on the air. [ a McMartin BA-1k...which now is in some ham shack in Tenn. ] Anyhow, the receptionist fired up the McMartin alright, but forgot to switch the rig over to the 2 tower array antenna. When I came rolling back into town after everyone had left the station for the day, within 3/4 of a mile from the station, a very weak signal was heard. Come to find out, the back-up rig had been on the dummy load for several hours!...at full power at 120% modulation! To my surprise, no harm was done to the air cooled, metal framed with porcelain stand off insulators dummy load. At another station that I engineer for, I currently use what someone else suggested using, light bulbs. I use two tower light beacon incandescent bulbs wired in series...works well for 1kw at 970khz. BTW, if all goes well with a few certain things on the home front here, I'm looking at getting back on HF mid to late summer [AM window look out!] Bob Carter - KC4QLP ------------------------------------------------------------- Mid-Atlantic-Engineering-Services of Utica NY / Elizabeth City NC http://www.geocities.com/midatlanticengineeringservice WKVU-FM Utica/Rome NY, WKVJ-FM Dannemora/Plattsburg NY, WRCS-AM Ahoskie NC ------------------------------------------------------------- Echolink/Repeater 145.240/- PL 131.8 node 56703 Echolink/Link [future 10 meter node] node 56704 Echolink conference server node 267137 [*KC4QLP*] Echolink conference server node 290251 [*KC4QLP-C*]
