• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

My SSTran Died

L

LibertyNT

I was Re-Peaking my SStran for use on 1650
when the Thing started smoking....
I found out that my meter caused a short
Between T1 and the big fat resistor.
Now it Doesnt work At ALL on the HIgh Bands
But Barely works on Low BAnds
[ie 940]
I looked under the board and saw brown marks
On the Dip Switches where they were soldered.
I bought my SStran pre-built from ONtheAir3.com
And im wondering if i can fix this myself or if they can?
 
Did you save the smoke? If you did, it can be filtered and put back in. ;)
If you did not, you'll have to find a replacement for the part you let the smoke out of.
It sounds like there was some high current in the DIP switches used to set frequency.
By the sound of it, there are 2 ranges, perhaps two separate oscillators, and the upper range oscillator is toast.
I've never seen a schematic, but if I find one, I'll help you troubleshoot.

I wish you the best of luck. I have been on the air with my part 15 AM since 1992 or so, except for a few 2 day outages,
when I had a capactior fail and take out the power transformer.
I'd be frantic until I got back on the air.

Why aren't there any tube pt 15 xmttrs on the market? Tubes don't go sproink and die from a little accident
like brief meter-lead shorting.
 
There is only one Oscillator i believe ...
and Its Crystal Controlled....

But i do have a hunch the dip switches may be Slightly kaput...
And when i say it barely works on the low bands i mean BARELY
The antenna's gotta be on the radio. and the sound is very faint.
Which leads me to believe that only the transmission part is fried and not the audio.

Since 1992 eh? Lol Mine only lasted bout 3 days :p
 
Havent seen a schematic yet but saw a picture. Is the temperature of the heat-sinked device hot, cold or warm?
This could be a regulator or an output transistor. If the thing works at all, it can't be totally fried. I suspect this device will be warmer,
and that it is a shunt voltage regulator now shorted, and draining off so much voltage that the oscillator won't even run above certain point.

I'm not seeing any fat resistors. I see a main incomng DC power filter electrolytic capactor near where you'd have been peaking.

Now that I have a picture up what part actually let out the smoke, and which set of dip switches, the long set or short set?
 
I didnt actually see what smoked up.
That Heat Sink still gets warm like it did when i first plugged it in.
Look for the resister thats bigger than all the others next to the 4-set Dip switch.
IM just going off the Brown burnish marks. They are on
the 4 dip switch
and the 10K Ohm Resister
 
The only thing near there that would seem smokable is two little glass diodes in the next "row".
Are they normal looking? What about that one lil blue tantalum capacitor at end of that dip switch pack?
Something should look funny if the smoke got let out.
 
I cant really tell what smoked but i do remember the smoke being near S7 Jumper
Oh and i found that High Band still works.
I get about a .07 DC Volt Peak.
 
I can't see any jumpers or silk screen markings in the photo I found.
You mean a WIRE jumper, above the PC board?
Take a good look at the two side by side transistors, up closer to the front of the board, on that same end as the big capacitor.
Do they look the same, are they the same temp?
 
S7 is a header Jumper.
And I tested teh Diode theory and Fried it up LOL!
Well I gave up and im Gunna Send it back to Pat
 
You fried the diode with a meter? Germanium diodes (which they appear to be) turn on at .3 volts.
I guess you could fry one..but are you sure maybe it wasn't already fried? Is the other diode bad, too?

I'd love to see the schematic.
 
They should be able to fix, I ordered mine from them & they were very helpful with my questions.

The Sstran is a good little transmitter, built like a tank. I wish they had an FM equivalent instead of having to use Ramsey kits & the like.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom