My First Zenith Trans-Oceanic!

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by Titan1a

I have a 1952 H500. I replaced four of the 5 tubes with semi-conductor replacements. The idea was to cut power consumption and lengthened component life. These are still available. The last tube is used to narrow IF response for better reception. I plan on having the selenium rectifier and capacitors and worn resisters followed by a tune-up. This is a good radio and can be surprising at times with strong reception and good fidelity. After this my 7000 will be "gone over" and realigned. You do what I'm doing and you'll get the best performance and longest life. Oh, I need a battery pack to see how well she sucks juice.

The filaments are series string so you can't really reduce heater power by using only solid state replacements... you'll either reduce power to the remaining filament or not achieve power consumption reduction.

In pretty much all tube portables the B battery asts the shelf life of the battery and the A (filament) battery is what gets spent quickly.

[vortalexfan]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

The filaments are series string so you can't really reduce heater power by using only solid state replacements... you'll either reduce power to the remaining filament or not achieve power consumption reduction.

In pretty much all tube portables the B battery asts the shelf life of the battery and the A (filament) battery is what gets spent quickly.

My understanding though is that the later tube battery sets had much better "A" battery life span than the earlier ones did like my Coronado 630B for example that used the old 2.1 Volt tubes vs. the later 7 pin miniature tubes that ran at 1.5 volts, like this Trans-Oceanic uses and has much less current draw.