DX500V L1 choke smoking

Got a notification from UPS today that I had a package being delivered tomorrow. Logged into my account and I'll be darn, it's my DX500V on the way home. I never heard from them other than a response to my email on 5/4 making sure they received it, John called me and let me know they had and said it would be around a 8 week turnaround. So needless to say I was very impressed and surprised to get the UPS email today. So hopefully she is fixed and ready to hit some skip. If for some reason it's not, I have the Palomar from Mr. Albert, and she's doing an excellent job.

Apparently it didn't take much to fix it (see attachment) .... I haven't pulled the lid to see if they replaced the board or not but she's running. It's doing about the same watts as the Palomar 400.... Got a radio check and the guy said it sounded great, so I guess that's all that matters.

Hopefully I can kill this thread before long...but I have a question or 2. I put the variable in my 29, moved the slug until I got max power, then screwed it in until it dropped 3 watts, it's showing 9 watts on pep using the CN-501H. Did the modulation the same way... Turned mic gain wide open and VR4 all the way down, watching the power meter (I know...) , turned up the modulation until there was no more forward movement then eased it down until the needle barely dropped. I have between 12.8 and 14.7 volts (it has that stupid a## alternator that shuts off) , on average though, it's 14 volts supply going to the amp. At startup I'm getting only 400 watts off of the 14.7 volts then around 350ish when it drops down to 13ish volts.... Is this acceptable out put concidering the input watts?

2NC995 said:

Am I correct in understanding that 9 watts peak in is showing you 350-400 out?

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Yeah, I'm slightly confused about that as well, which makes me question the accuracy of the meter in pep.

2NC995 said:

Note my edit, please. I included the power chart I made for mine.

I think your readings are correct.

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That looks pretty accurate to what I've been seeing. Thank you VERY much for the chart.

2NC995 said:

I’ll also add this - I read so much (on other sites) about massive drive levels needed for the DX500, and almost universal recommendations that one NOT use one with a normal single final radio - “you’ll be starving the amp”...and so on.

Once I bought mine and played with it, I realized they were all bunk. I think a barefoot radio is actually a pretty good match, unless you’re really chasing the wattmeter. These amps don’t need a lot of drive.

Using the same radio as that test, with power at 30W, is what I use to drive my DX1600 now.

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I'd been debating buying a stronger radio to drive it with, but at the same time, didn't want to over drive it or beat the crap out of it for 100 more watts and lose it altogether. Seeing as my readings are matching closely with yours put my mind at ease. I'll just keep everything like it is and just walk her instead of running her to death. Again @2NC995, thank you.

Still haven't killed the DEIs..... A while back (5+ months ago) I drove the 500V with my KL203, putting out right at 200 watts (about 190ish), to try and kill it, (had intentions of replacing them with HGs) but she did ok running 900+ watts....well yesterday I pulled her out to give her a little run (I'm over my anger issues with her) and she was only doing around 220-230 watts. Opened here up and found the 100 ohm 2 watt resistor on the combiner (L4) was fried. Pulled the transistors and they all checked good with the lowest hFE being 58, the original gains were written on the transistors with the 1st set @ 60 and the 2nd set @ 61.
Soooooo, while I'll admit, in hindsight what I did was incredibly ridiculous/stupid, I learned that
(1) the DEIs are FAR more robust than I had originally thought.
(2) Getting angry at inanimate objects is retarded.
Ordered a pack of metal oxide resistors from Amazon and will replace it and probably use it as a base amp when I get one up.