Tram D201

[koa1569woody]

How do i crank up the power on this radio just to push up a watt or two Woody

[Sandbagger]

Mar 29, 2017 16:55:54 GMT -5 koa1569woody said:

How do i crank up the power on this radio just to push up a watt or two Woody

I guess a better question would be "How much of a signal difference do you think one or two more watts will give you?"

[bill]

Which D201 is it ? I believe I have read of 3 possibilities... How many Watts is it doing ? Has the Radio been restored in order to gain reliability ?

[2600]

Any time someone asks "How much more can I get?", it gets answered first with another question.

As in, "How much power do you get now?"

Is this a 23-channel or a 40-channel radio? The larger 6L6GC found in the 23-channel radio tends to deliver less peak power than the smaller 6DG6 tube they used in the 40-channel radio.

But the smaller tube wears out sooner. The bigger tube lasts longer, but at the penalty of a few Watts peak power.

Weak filter capacitors can limit your peak modulated power. If those are original, they will cause trouble soon, if they haven't done so yet. Weak tubes can also, of course.

There are more than enough internal adjustments to get out of whack and reduce your power that way. The Tune and Load controls on the rear should be peaked for max modulated power on AM. If you peaked them on just the carrier with no audio modulation, this will definitely hold you back.

A radio with a lot of mileage can have problems caused by carbon-composition resistors that change value from age and use.

Kinda like asking "How can I get my car to go faster?" without revealing how fast it goes now, or which motor is in it, or how many hundred thousand miles are on it.

73

[BBB]

Maybe you want to raise the power a watt or two to match an external amp? I know the difference between a 2.5 watt and 6 watt AM carrier can mean a lot to match an external amp properly.

If you just want to get more power than a 5 watt AM carrier out of a stand alone Tram D201, get an external amp.

See a pattern developing here?

[Sandbagger]

Mar 30, 2017 19:15:37 GMT -5 BBB said:

Maybe you want to raise the power a watt or two to match an external amp? I know the difference between a 2.5 watt and 6 watt AM carrier can mean a lot to match an external amp properly.

If you just want to get more power than a 5 watt AM carrier out of a stand alone Tram D201, get an external amp.

See a pattern developing here?

Between what I asked, what 2600 asked and what you alluded to, it sets up for a learning experience.

The Tram, like any other CB radio, is supposed to put out 4 watts of carrier (16 watts PEP). If this particular Tram is putting out significantly less that that and you want to restore proper power, then a weak tube replacement and/or an alignment may be in order. On the other hand, if the radio is putting out 4 watts and the op wants to increase his signal and range, then it's time for the reality that a couple of extra watts will make virtually no difference on the other guy's receive signal meter. To get an increase in signal from say, an S7 to an S8 on someone's meter, means that you have to increase your power 4 times (6db). Which means you need to put out a 16 watt carrier (4 X 4 watts) and still maintain 100% modulation (4 X 16 = 64 watts PEP). This is not something you can achieve by simple "peaks and tweaks". Yes, it can be done, but it will require a decent amount of work (read: expensive) for a shop to do. And the reliability of the radio will likely suffer as a result of the extra strain on the power supply. And that's only a 1 "S" unit gain. What if you want more? That's why I almost never recommend radio peak jobs. For serious boosts in signal, your best bet is to pick up an external amplifier. Even a two tube or two transistor amp is good for a 10 - 13db boost in power which will be good for about a 2 "S" unit increase in signal. Ironically, most modern solid state CB amps don't like to be driven with more than 3 watts anyway, so you definitely don't want to increase the radio's power if you plan on running an amp.