My
personal Clipperton-L notes - some fact / some opinion - but always accurate
(hihi):

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> Clipperton-L Notes
Pros:
- A lot of power out of a
relatively compact, lightweight package (about 50 pounds).
- Inexpensive tube replacement
- Chinese 572B's work great and can be had for about $200 for the whole
set of four (4).
- Operates on either 120 or
240 VAC power supply is built in.
- A lot of "bang for
the buck" as amplifier will output in excess of 1KW and are still
plentiful & inexpensive.
- Low profile - the four (4)
572B tubes are mounted horizontally - so entire unit is only 6 3/4"
high (including the feet)
- 572B's are correctly mounted
for correct filament alignment.
- As of this writing (2011)
units are around 30 years old (not quite as old as most of the Heaths
and 30L-1's floating around).
Cons:
- No longer in production
- Not exactly stellar construction.
- Stock unit suffers from
60 Hz. hum due to improper feed of directly heated cathode 572-B finals.
Output is actually modulated by the AC filament power (no transformer
center tap). Dentron pushed the cost cutting envelope too far in this
design - BUT - an easy fix.
Modification
highly recommended and should only cost about $20.00.
- NOT tuned input - designed
to be driven with tube output exciters. My unit has a broad band matching
input board - modern rigs will drive with a tuner. Very late versions
of this amplifier had tuned input circuits for each band (rare - not
many were produced).
- Not designed for continuous
modes OR continuous duty. I have had many QSO's running AM - BUT - I
kept the plate voltage in the low voltage "CW" position and
ran no more than 100 watts output (roughly 330 watts input).
- Fan is noisy and constantly
changing speed due to series feed through a resistor.
- Be VERY careful when buying
a Clipperton-L - many ended up on 11 Meters over the years. Be prepared
to spend some extra money and time after purchasing one of these amplifiers
(for filter caps, fan, mods. & probably a set of final tubes). Also,
many of these amplifiers have been abused and now have soft finals.
- Low output on 160 Meters
due to pi-network coupling to the enclosure - see
VE3NH for data.
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