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Little mystery amp

Dav3

Dav3

AK Subscriber
Subscriber
Picked up a box of interesting junk for $10 from a yard sale today including some nice ham tubes, an Admiral 6S12N console pull, and a funky little amp I was wondering if anyone could identify. It 'boasts' a single 6X5WGT rectifier tube, an old style speaker out socket, and a Kenyon T157 Transformer (kenyon lists this as a filter reactor), and a plain black cage with no identification. IMG_2548.JPG IMG_2549.JPG IMG_2553.JPG
Any sleuths ideas what this was originally for?
 
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Dav3 said:
Picked up a box of interesting junk for $10 from a yard sale today including some nice ham tubes, an Admiral 6S12N console pull, and a funky little amp I was wondering if anyone could identify........
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My best guess,

Since it appears to be homemade, and since you found Ham radio tubes with it, I'll bet it's a power supply for a small Ham transmitter (which was likely also homemade) .
 
With a little study it looks like this might have been a type of surge protector / line conditioner to protect the downstream components against surges and high-order harmonics coming from the power company to house current. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'll have to see if the filter might be useful for something (ideas anyone?).
 
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Dav3 said:
With a little study it looks like this might have been a type of surge protector / line conditioner to protect the downstream components against surges and high-order harmonics coming from the power company to house current. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'll have to see if the filter might be useful for something (ideas anyone?), or, if any AK'rs have a use for the filter, you can have for whatever the shipping cost is and I'll use the case for some future project.
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With all due respect, the presence of the 6X5 says your wrong.....;)

Riddle me this, batman, , , what use would an AC house current surge protector or line conditioner have with a rectifier such as the 6X5 :dunno:

I'm still betting it's a homemade power supply for some piece of Ham radio equipment :thumbsup:
 
Dav3, it is a power supply. It has a power transformer, choke coil, rectifier tube, and filter capacitors.

It could have been for a mono tube amplifier, field coil speaker, or piece of ham equipment. Us tech guys can spot these things a mile away. :thumbsup:
 
Thanks! That's why I picked this thing up, I was curious, and posted about it, to learn something from those that know more than I do (low bar here). It makes sense now the reactor is the choke, when I think of reactors I think VFD's in large HP motor applications rather than audio.
 
Dav3 said:
Thanks! That's why I picked this thing up, I was curious, and posted about it, to learn something from those that know more than I do (low bar here). It makes sense now the reactor is the choke, when I think of reactors I think VFD's in large HP motor applications rather than audio.
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I think ya oughta keep it, if your just getting started in tubes there are a bunch of good uses for a nice little power supply that can give you 6.3 AC and a couple or few hundred DC as your knowledge progresses ;)
 
Thanks for the advice! So far I haven't run into a need for something like this yet but if there are bunches of good uses I'll hang on to it. And Cademan, you were probably spot on with your ham guess, the owner that had passed away was a big into ham radio.

Side note: the folks that I bought the amps from texted me today they had found a 'bunch of tubes if I was interested'. They just wanted the house empty, so now I have two overflowing boxes of tubes, a 60 watt modulation transformer, old roller-smith volt-ammeter, and a working Benjamin Miracord / Elac turntable for $30. They also threw in a bottle of brandy and a bottle of pinot noir free since you can't sell alcohol at a yard sale. Really nice people, which is the main reason I go to yard sales since I rarely leave with anything. Rarely. :beerchug:
 
Question, I also picked up a 60w modulation transformer from the same place, is there any audio application for one of these or is that only good for transmitters?
 
Thanks for the advice, I need to start selling off some stuff to pay for more stuff!
 
In theory you might be able to use a modulation transformer for high impedance headphones or something. They don't tend to have much reduction ratio, somewhere in the 2:1 zone, so a single ended tube that wants a 3.5k plate load would work into 1700 ohm headphones pretty well.

I suppose you could use it off a cathode follower instead of a capacitor. They are generally not full range but working into an extremely easy load it won't make any sort of power and might function acceptably.
 
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