Energy-Onix Pulsar 1000

[OKCRadioGuy]

Just a piece info to pass on to anyone that has the misfortune of owning an E-O Pulsar 1000 AM transmitter with the brute-force power supply: If your transmitter goes nuts every so often (very random) where all the nice green lights on the exciter section drops off then back on rapidly, check the two AC caps near the big transformer. One is a 20 and the other is a 24uf. Turns out the 24uf was bad in ours. It was visibly swollen on the top, sloshed and checked bad. The design of this thing works the caps over because it's AM (where the current draw varies a ton) and contributes to early failure of these caps. Our transmitter is about 6 years old now. A friend who also has this model had similar issues and clued me in. Also, if you have spurious problems with one of these, the PDM frequency can be changed curing that problem. Our FET replacement has went down a ton since we received the PDM frequency change mod. Being around of these things sure makes me appreciate something like a Harris Gates One or Nautel Ampfet!!!

 

[Kmagrill]

Being that the capacitors date back to the early-mid 2000s, they may well have been victims of the infamous "capacitor plague" that affected most 'lytic capacitors manufactured during that era and resulted in premature failure of them. The story of industrial spying gone awry makes interesting reading. Google "capacitor plague" for more info. It'd be more fun if it weren't such a pain in the assets......

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

True that!

 

[Kent T]

Been through the cap replacements on one already. Very good transmitter. Documentation lacking. Reliable this one has been as well as another owned by a different station.