What 'primes' the magnetron on these systems?

A maggie will do the work at ampin up the input and all, but I thought there
was a certain threshold you had to achieve before it could to it's work
properly.
In some of our old systems we used thyrtrons to bring up the power a bit
(volts/current?? not sure) and then the maggie would jack it up and kick it
out.

The cavity of our maggies can be adjusted for the frequency you are putting
out, but we also have some external compnents that assist with that and with
the firing rate.
We've gone completely solid state in a black box...so that's a s much as I
know about it!! haha

Fun stuff though! I used to have to shave my head....might be age...or
exposure...but if I keep working on these I won't have to anymore. OH, and
my tan as gotten a lot better! j/k


"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 01 Mar 2004 23:01:21 GMT, "SB" wrote:

Do these little guys use magnetrons??

not much for power....would this use some sort of tube??

Yes, they do. Magnetrons are both oscillator and amplifier and
frequency controller. They are extremely efficient at putting out a
very narrow pulse of very high powered RF energy. Any FAA long-range
radar site has another similar device on S-Band, the amplitron. It
takes the powerful pulse of the magentron and amplifies it into the
megawatt range!

The magnetron in our 2KW Raymarine is a tiny little thing with a tiny
little filament to hold down the power drain. Every microwave oven in
the world has a magnetron firing 50 to 60 times per second into its
cooking cavity. They are also dirt cheap, which is why the marine
industry loves them....(c;



Larry W4CSC

No, no, Scotty! I said, "Beam me a wrench.", not a WENCH!
Kirk Out.....