6 METER GS-35B AMPLIFIER

CONSTRUCTION

1500 watts for 6 meter EME

The construction of the box was the same as the push pull amps. Two sheets of
.06 thick aluminum were cut to the size of the final front panel. The two sheets
were laminated together using "J-B Weld", a two part epoxy. The studs were
placed in the inside sheet. The final sheet was laminated over the stud heads
and was easy to paint over. The socket is made from a sheet of aluminum
turned to a circle on the lathe. Air holes are added inside an HDPE ring cut to
hold the glass chimney in position. The chimney is held down with a length of
high temperature foam rubber held in place with a hose clamp. The anode
connection is made with a large screw into the top of the radiator that has been
drilled and tapped to take a #10-32 brass screw.

The circuit is the PI network with a "Q" of about 12. The 7 uh RF plate choke
was wound on .75 inch diameter Delrin rod that was threaded to space the #22
wire. The choke sits on a by-pass capacitor and is fed voltage through a high-
voltage feed through capacitor (6 KV). Input and output relays are RJ1A
Jennings vacuums. A variable capacitor of 150 pf provides the loading. A Z-50
inductor is used across the loading capacitor for protection. Plate tuning is
done with a closed turn near the cold end of the .25 diameter copper tubing
plate coil. At 6 meters, the desired tuning capacity is already high due to the
tubes output capacity and circuit strays. Using a variable capacitor with its
minimum capacity, would make the circuit Q too high and therefore lossy.
The filament choke is wound on a .50 diameter ferrite rod. The bias is high for
the GS-35B, so a pair of 16 volt, 50 watt, stud mounted zeners are used
(1N3315B). At 32 volts of bias, the idling current is 120 ma. A 4 position switch
is used to add additional power diodes (4 diodes) to the zener string and bring
the idling current to 100 ma. An RF choke of about 8 uh (a Z-50 will work) is
used to feed the bias to the cathode tube ring. All leads are filtered with an RF
choke and feed through by-pass capacitor. A thermistor (CL-60) is placed in a
filament transformer primary lead to cut the inrush current. The voltage to the
filament transformer is also fed through a micro-switch with a wind vane to
turn the tube off if the air supply fails. The air enters the amplifier through a
honeycomb duct.
A "T" match is used to tune the input and is adjustable from the front panel.
The inductors are about .92 uh each. They are made with 10 turns of #19 wire
on a .625 diameter form with a length of .75 inches. The variable capacitor is
50 pf.

Testing is done with a carbon resistor of 2950 ohms tied from the tube's anode
to ground to similate the load impedance. The plate circuit is tuned for 1 to 1
SWR using an impedance bridge (MFJ-269). A 35 ohm carbon resistor is tied
from the cathode to ground to test the "T" match.

With 3800 volts at 700 ma on the plate, the output is 1500 watts. It requires
about 80 watts of drive.

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