Henry, I never blew any of the sweep tubes either but I was also pretty darned careful as didn't have a lot of money to go spending on my mistakes. but, I sure do know a lot of people who really went through those tubes. I remember one of the local ham radio stores used to have a tube on their shelf where everybody could see it. One side was all caved in and I guess pretty darned ugly. Just a reminder of what could happen if you weren't careful with one of those rigs. Don W6SMB On Fri, 22 Nov 2002 09:51:38 -0000, Henry Brugsch wrote: >Hi Don, well I owned an ft101-e for about ten years, never replaced the >sweep tubes. Now, I am working with an ft101-z, and a ts440. The latter is >equipped with an auto-tuner. Butch, it still works, now. >The 101-z has hooked up to it a palomar tuner-tuner, which is essentially a >pre-tuned noise bridge to 50 ohms. Adjust the atu for maximum quiet. Another >problem with this little gem is, if the fuse blows, you get incorrect >readings, but no way of really knowing that your device is off the air. >So, you really need to be careful. >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Don Bishop" <[log in to unmask]> >To: <[log in to unmask]> >Sent: Friday, November 22, 2002 12:16 AM >Subject: Re: tuning up an antenna > > >> Hi, >> >> You sure can use a noise bridge to tune an antenna tuner. Just make >> sure you know where the 50 ohm setting is on the bridge and then tune >> the tuner for a sharp null in the noise. One caution: be darned sure >> you remove the bridge from the line before you transmit or you will >> have a noise bridge that doesn't produce a sound! >> >> If you are using one of the rigs of today with an automatic antenna >> tuner you can tune by listening to the motor and when it stops, the >> antenna is matched. You don't know how good the match is of course, >> but it's a way to do it without a lot of hightech equipment. When you >> do this without any speech or similar readout, it isn't a bad idea to >> move up and down the band a bit just to get an idea of how much your >> swr is changing as you shift frequency. Once you get one of these >> things tuned up on a band, it really is a good idea to check the match >> with the auto antenna tuner whenever you change frequency very much. >> >> I do remember the rigs with a sweep tube amplifier. They weren't quite >> as forgiving with swr and it was always a good idea to tune the thing, >> regardless of how you did it, very promptly. If you didn't, you really >> needed a good supply of new tubes. <grin> Those things could blow in >> a hurry if you weren't careful. >> >> Don W6SMB >> >> >> >> On Thu, 21 Nov 2002 19:17:41 -03-30, Michael Ryan wrote: >> >> >Can a noise bridge which was once used on an old heath kit >> >HW-12 be used in conjunction with an antenna tuner for reading SWR? >> >I will try and describe it. >> >It has a switch on the lower front which slides back and forth to the >left >> >or right for turning on or off and a flat roguery knob next to the >> >switch. The connectors for antenna and so on are on the top. It also >has >> >a round raised speaker. >> >I would also like to know what to look for, when it comes to the power >> >supply hum, when the rig is loaded up for maximum out put. >> > >> >Thanks all: >> >Michael