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Reviews For: Central Electronics 600L

Category: Amplifiers: RF Power - HF & HF+6M

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Review Summary For : Central Electronics 600L
Reviews: 2MSRP: 495.00
Description:
600W Broadband Tube Type Linear Amplifier
Product is not in production
More Info: http://www.tusaconsulting.com/ce.htm#info
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0024.5
AC2YW Rating: 2022-06-16
Rare Broadbanded Amp Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
This is a well-built broad banded amplifier from the mid 50s to early 60s. It has a beefy choke input and oil cap power supply, powering an 813. Also, the bias and screen voltage are both regulated. The best part is no tuning is required, just set the band! Truly ahead of its time. The 813 is a very robust tube that's not too expensive and doesn't need to be pampered.

It was designed to work with low power Central Electronics exciters, so it can't handle more than 20W input.

Other features include a built-in power and swr meter with high swr protection. There's also a circuit breaker on the plate which came in handy several times.

The reason for knocking off a star is that this amp needed a lot more work than I initially expected, and it's still not 100% The input swamping resistors will open up considerably. The swr bridge resistors also opened up. These were both replaced with ceramic composite resistors. There were also issues with the output broadband transformers. I rewound two of them so far and a third needs rewinding. Others report the swr relay coil opens up. You need to be patient as well as handy. To be fair, I've also broke things while trying to fix other things. Just saying there's more than just replacing electrolytic capacitors and selenium diodes here.

Hams thought I had AC hum on the power supply, but the problem was excessive transformer hum entering the microphone. To fix, the laminations were painted with penetrating glue as well as mounting on rubber.

That said, it's a beautiful piece of equipment. Just be prepared to put in the time for those 350 watts.
N4OZI Rating: 2004-01-02
Great Amp! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This is an excellent little amplifier that dates back to the 50s that uses a single 813 in the final. By using separate broadband couplers in the grid and plate circuits, it does not require any tuning. The 600L is designed to work 160, 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10 meters.

Designed to work with the SSB transmitters of that day, the 600L only requires 8 watts of drive (2 watts AM) to obtain full output. With this in mind, care must be taken not to overdrive the 600L with today’s 100 watt transceivers. I use an attenuator on the input to keep this from happening.

Another unique thing about the 600L is that it uses an 812A tube to regulate the screen supply. This gives the screen supply better than 1 % regulation for any load or line voltage change. The plate supply uses a rather hefty plate transformer and swinging choke in addition to a large 45 mfd capacitor, to give 1800 volts for the plate supply.

I give the 600L high marks for its design and operation. Just a pure joy to operate.