RadeoEngineer said:
then they need to figure out why it's doing that. Tis not normal for anything much less a Nautel transmitter.
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1 kw am transmitter
- Thread starter radiopkwy
- Start date
then they need to figure out why it's doing that. Tis not normal for anything much less a Nautel transmitter.
Every day has it's dog and every manufacturer has one also. I've seen an older 10 kW standby Amphet off line due to module failure. It was backing up a Harris 50 KW.
Even with the occasional dog, Nautel customer service can't be beat. My experience with Nautel is the ND series forward through the XR series. I had never had a power module failure. But, I have blown out a cap in the output filter more than once. That occurred on the same rig. Too much Optimod? Other than that, smooth sailing.
Bengalsfan said:
Don't get me wrong, I'm a big believer in Nautel products and services. I put an Ampfet 1 on the air in San Diego in 1985 and it's still running today. Only failure was a blown fuse. The 10 kW I refer to has had Nautel engineers all over it and they never solved the problem. It continues to blow modules frequently. If I was buying a new transmitter today and had the budget, it would be a Nautel.
RadeoEngineer said:
I'm surprised they haven't just replaced the box yet. I have an NV 10 that's been on the air six months with no problem.
There's an Amphet 50 that blew FETs on a regular basis. They had a big supply of spare parts. Always two or three modules on the bench.
New CE come in sets the audio bandwidth to 7 KHz and problem solved!
The array has really bad VSWR on the sidebands. It's a home-brew design.
New CE come in sets the audio bandwidth to 7 KHz and problem solved!
The array has really bad VSWR on the sidebands. It's a home-brew design.
I could see how that would be an issue indeed. There's a few other things about the Ampfail 50 that can cause issues. The open relays on the back, if their unit still has them, and the stupid fuse wires should be retrofitted with Nautel's replacement sealed relay modules. They make a retrofit that replaces the whole darn mess. We had nothing but trouble with ours until we switched that out. Also, if a lot of module swapping has went on, they need to do that adjustment that requires an adapter (should be with their spare parts kit) on each cube. There's a voltage sample that you put a multimeter on and tune the adjustment on the back. The biggest issue we had with our unit was combiners. By design, the Ampfail is flawed in that the impedance is very low at the combining points. So if there's an issue, it just keeps burning. I could definately see how the array tuning (bandwidth) could be a real hidden fet-blower. I'd find someone with a good network analyzer and an amp and take a look at what the Nautel is looking into. Many AMs were just tuned the best they could with a bridge and went for broke. BW wasn't as important (at least on ruining a transmitter) as it is now with SS, for sure.
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