I looked at this “conversion” and can’t imagine doing something like this to a L-4B. The excuse is the power supplies are hard to find and parts go bad in the old amp supplies. Then, the guy uses a Heathkit transformer which is just as old as a Drake transformer. To fit it in the RF deck, he cobles it up and winds up with one –3-500Z tube in it rather then two of them. He uses a Heathkit Shop filter board which are wonderful. (I thought he said parts were hard to find)! The project produces a smaller amp, costly to do, time consuming, and ruins the value of the RF deck. More easily a new supply could have been constructed on an outboard chassis or more easily repaired an old supply.
I would say if you don’t have a power supply, buy one used or build one up on another chassis and not install it in the RF deck. Use the Heathkit Shop board in the new supply or as a replacement in an original supply. To each his own, but the project totally turns me off and makes no economic sense to me. The article is well written and has great pictures. Just goes to show you how different people think differently. For me it is a project from another planet. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with the author doing this but am just amazed at how differently I would have approached the problem if I had an RF deck without a power supply or owned a bad power supply for my L-4B. I wrote this not to “flame” the author. Lee, w0vt PS: The web site is wonderful! All, Anyone interested in the Drake L-4B amplifier may be interested in a new article I just released. This article is a redesign of the L-4B amplifier which requires no external high voltage power supply. It is completely self-contained. The article can be found on my Drake website. Follow the link, and click on the article link at the top of the page. http://www.wb4hfn.com/DRAKE/DrakePageHome.htm 73, Ron / WB4HFN -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________
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