How to Upgrade WRL Globe Chief Deluxe Ham tube transmitter Plate Meter
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 มี.ค. 2018
- A great update to your classic Globe Chief CW transmitter. This will also work with the model 90 & 90A. The meters used back then were substandard. Nice 300ma meters can be found on ebay for a small investment. Labor time is about an hour to replace the original. Now the transmitter is a pleasure to operate, smooth, quiet meter operation. Fun again! I enjoy working on this old stuff. I hope this info is of value to you. Please don't bash me for modifying. It is a chance for the radio to survive. Most do not have the patience for such work, so the relic ends up in the dump.
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My first xmtr as a novice in 1960. Nice to just see one again.
Bread dough is good stuff for catching and retaining drill bit filings in radios.
Terry I did that very same thing to my Globe Chief Deluxe in 1969. Got really tired of the floppity flop. I replace it with a Simpson Meter with much better damping and went in the mounting hole real well. Wish I still had the rig. Hind site.
People should know the difference between preservation, restoration, repair and repurpose.
If you get a prewar amplifier with all original components, for instance, you won't probably be able to power it up and play because capacitors will be leaky or dried out, grounding will not be compliant, contacts will be rusty, tubes won't be working, etc.
You can decide to preserve this amp as a faithful example of how prewar amps were built and what materials were used back when. Then what you do is keep it in a controlled environment to prevent further deterioration.
Or you can decide to restore it. Then you will replace all the defective components with new ones, but you will respect the use of materials and processes of the era as much as you can. For instance, you will use new (i.e. not leaking) paper capacitors, even knowing that they have a tendency to leak over time. But the idea is to bring your piece of equipment to a working condition as if it was new at the time of its introduction.
But you can repair it. Now you want to bring the old piece of equipment to a working condition, retaining the main traits of it as a historic item, but you want to use modern components, like modern filter caps, coupling and decoupling caps, compliant power cords, etc. Upgrades included. Why not? You are repairing. You want to keep on using it. The repair will now be part of its history.
Repurpose is the most radical intervention. But it is a practice that has been used since ancient times. It certainly destroys historic evidence. But it is better than scrapping. Numerous historic findings were made because parts of a piece of history were repurposed and consequently kept from total waste.
When I am before a piece of history, I tend to repair it if necessary. Before I repair, I document the original state of it. If repair is not possible, then why not repurpose? Restoration and preservation are for museums (public or private) I guess. But giving a new life to an old bugger is also a form of preservation.
Terry I love your video's and watch them over & over, I wish they were longer and delved into the Technology in detail for us Layman .
Terry, I appreciate the tenor of your videos. You do a great job with your channel.
Hi Brad , Terry is My local amp tech , You too do a great job with your channel , both of you guys are two of the best on the planet! Cheers
Hey man, I think the back cover to your Mesa is here in the shop?
Thanks man, I do appreciate it. Trying to climb that subscriber ladder! My wife & I really enjoy your channel. I just need to follow up & comment. I am just always racing around here, things slip. Thanks again for your support. TD
I looked for it high and low here,so it probably is,when can I pick it up?Also talk about the "shoebox " amp project!
I will be here this weekend. Have a cool amp for you to try.
Terry, thanks for these videos on HAM radio. Just starting in HAM, and these videos are very educational for me on the practical tech side.
To use a meter of that quality probably would have added 10% to the price tag of $80 in 1960. It was built to a price point to compete with the Heathkit and Eico offerings of the time. Things like precision meters and transformers were relatively expensive components at that time, and, indeed still are today. Well done as always. 73 Doug.
Some of those bouncing-betty meters were okay for accuracy, they just lacked a damper in the movement. But it did leave you wondering during tuneup how the final amplifier plate was getting along while you waited for the meter to settle down.
"You can do anything with a Dremel tool." Best line of the night.
I never had luck using an abrasive wheel on aluminum, it clogs up too fast, I'd start with a carbide cutting bit, then a sanding wheel to clean up.
Fantastic job Terry,
If you use a socket would be a lot easier to remove that corroded nut
A proper meter also helps to extend the life of the finals, too. Those goofy bouncy 'moving-vane' meters take a relatively long time to stabilize enough to accurately dip the plate, and if the plate-tuning is way off-resonance at first, the final's plates are gonna be cooking while the friggin' needle flops back and forth.
Nice job Terry. I wonder if adding a small cap to the old meter would have calmed it down... who knows.. I do not know enough about keying to make a valid suggestion but who knows. very nice work. I agree.... if a piece of gear is not usable, why maintain an old look.. I'd rather it be usable and someone enjoy it. Nice work
That's what I was thinking. Hard to guess a value beforehand but maybe start with a 1uF and just see how the meter reacts. Personal preference here.
Or if you truly want to insult the originality, build a little LED bar graph display and driver board. No overshoot, just instantaneous actual value.
A smaller, cheaper meter might have fit the original hole & mounted just like the bouncy-betty meter. That would be completely reversible down the road.
One isn't really preserving historical value with mods - you _might_ keep it operating but it _won't_ be the same piece it was before the change. I hope he keeps the old meter with it in case a future owner wants to restore factory appearance (tho it now has more holes than the factory gave it).
I know this sort of thing is a contentious issue, but there are already-hacked rigs to modify & tinker with. And cheaper, because they aren't pristine. The few (& fewer every year) good looking examples seem to deserve preservation.
And I'm a sinner too - I've hacked & modified & parted-out things that make me cringe now.
Would that meter work in a Globe Chief de Dave W1CTN
The Globe Chief is listed on QTH.com
swap.qth.com/view_ad.php?counter=1372905
Terry how does one get a hold of you to possibly have some work done? Thanks for the great videos...
Hey man, I am really bad responding to e-mails due to being over busy. My phone number is listed on my website. Usually around on weekends. TD
D-lab Electronics Terry thanks for the heads up and the info.. Will get around to giving you a call sir.. 👍
Terry,
Great video, as I have come to expect from you. I am a member of the Vintage Radio & Communications Museum of CT, and we have a Globe Chief up on eBay right now. Our han club is keeping the other one, which is in a lot better shape. What I wanr to know is why this radio? Was it a change in design, looked nice, or what? What was Globe's idea for releasing this radio?
I'm trying to get people interested in things like this, rather than just seeing a display of boxes with knobs and switches. Any history you have on this model would be helpful.
The one we are keeping, I may make the mete modifucation, and make it available in our shack. Let old hams relive their early days, and let newer hams experience what it was like back then.
How do you measure grid current ?
This transmitter did not have that function. The Globe Scouts did have 2 scales on their meters. One for Plate and the other grid.
I have a Eico 723 transmitter that was my first commercial made when I was a novice. The meter does the same thing. The meter at full scale is at 150MA full scale and you have to load it to 120 MA according to the specs. So I switch it to read grid drive reduce that bouncing around of the meter. Anyway I knew I was loaded up properly when the hallway lights glow when I transmitted !!