Gerard M0AIU/AA3ES wrote:
> hope you are not into CW contesting. A vacuum relay has a life of
>about 2 million operations. A serious CW contester will wear it out in 6
>days! And that is when the relay was purchased new.
I have been using some RF1 vacuum relays for switching the amp available a
few years back here at all the hamfests at about $7-50 each, new. (You can
tell we're not in Nebraska!) They were arranged so that the bias doesn't
come off the grid until the output relay has gone over: they are energised
for receive. I do not run QSK, but got a strange effect that received
signals would all go T4, and the received signal levels would drop. Tapping
the relay with a pencil would restore things. Now I don't know about 2
million operations, but in 9 years, they must have knocked up a fair few
operations even without QSK, especially when contesting.
I now have an open frame conventional relay: it's fast enough, and the
contacts are still arranged to prevent hot switching.
Gerard, how are the PIN diodes doing?
73
Peter G3RZP
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