[BC] Continental HI-Power FM Tubes

[Dave Hultsman]

The Factory gave them a recall.  The "Q" of the grid circuit was terrible.   The design engineer used a 1/2 wave cavity that liked to arc internally and Eimac forgot how to make the tubes and raised the price from $5,500 to 9500.00 in 3 years.   There were 13 sold. Aall stations were offered trade-ins based on their usage of the transmitters and trading up to parallel transmitters of 60 kW.  We already had made several parallel 35 kWs for 70 kW.  After about 5 years of tube problems it didn't appear to the industry or CEC that Eimac was going to get back to the 50-60,000 hours on the first three transmitters at WFOX (2) and WYAY in Atlanta.
 
All of the stations but one accepted the offer from Continental based on the records and reliability of the 816R parallel transmitters.  At one time Continental had more parallel transmitters in the field than any other single manufacturer.   The one company that didn't accept the offer tried to sell the used 817-A on the market as used.  CEC said they no longer supported or had any parts for the 817-A to all that inquired about the used rig.  The owner later traded it to CEC for the deal and a 35 kW. transmitter.
 
CEC backed the product, but most of the problem was the tube. The tube reps came out to a NAB party at the site where three of the transmitters operated near Atlanta and there were six duds stacked in the storage room.
 
Dave Hultsman
 
In a message dated 2/29/2012 11:39:06 A.M. Central Standard Time, curt at spam-o-matic.net writes:
>On Wednesday 29 February 2012 11:07:40 am Dave Hultsman wrote:
>> 817-A,  60 kW.,  4CX-60,000A Tube
>>            (Thirteen built all returned & scrapped)

>Scrapped ?
>  That's kinda scary.
>   How come scrapped ?
>     Why returned ?

>--
>Cowboy