T1 Operational Temperature Limits?

[GeorgeP1111]

I'm just about ready to put up a 44' Doublet and feed it with 300 ohm Twin Lead.  I'm going to connect the Twin Lead to a balun and the T1 at the base of the Doublet mast and run about 35' of RG213 back to the shack and my FT-817ND (soon to be a KX3).

I was wondering if the T1 could withstand the cold temperatures we get here in Minnesota.  I wrote Elecraft Support asking if there were any specs or if they thought a temp of -30 to +100 F would cause any problems.  Dale responded, "We do not have any real information on what the temperature limits are, so we suggest you post on the reflector and ask for input from other T1 users who have over the years had T1's out in varying environmental conditions."

Any "Snowmen" out there?

Also.... I'll be needing a BL2 balun so if someone has one they don't need/use, drop me a note off list.

tnx
de George
WD0AKZ

[e-mail]

-30?  What about the really cold temperatures you get in late January and  
early February?  I am from Wisconsin and it hit -65 one night.  It was  
rather brisk out to say the least.  You may want to bring the T1 inside at  
that point and keep it warm.  I doubt the T1 is built to milspec standards  
nor does it use milspec parts.  Below -20F you may experience some thermal  
contraction issues which are different for each material in the gadget.  
That 'could' break a few connections.  But I will wait until the  
empiricists arrive for some stories of how the T1 survived a real winter.
    VY 73,
       Kevin.  KD5ONS
       Wisconsin born and bred which is why my melting point is only  
slightly above that of water :)




On Mon, 01 Aug 2011 20:41:08 -0700, GeorgeP1111 <[hidden email]> wrote:

> I'm just about ready to put up a 44' Doublet and feed it with 300 ohm  
> Twin
> Lead.  I'm going to connect the Twin Lead to a balun and the T1 at the  
> base
> of the Doublet mast and run about 35' of RG213 back to the shack and my
> FT-817ND (soon to be a KX3).
>
> I was wondering if the T1 could withstand the cold temperatures we get  
> here
> in Minnesota.  I wrote Elecraft Support asking if there were any specs  
> or if
> they thought a temp of -30 to +100 F would cause any problems.  Dale
> responded, "We do not have any real information on what the temperature
> limits are, so we suggest you post on the reflector and ask for input  
> from
> other T1 users who have over the years had T1's out in varying  
> environmental
> conditions."
>
> Any "Snowmen" out there?
>
> Also.... I'll be needing a BL2 balun so if someone has one they don't
> need/use, drop me a note off list.
>
> tnx
> de George
> WD0AKZ
>
> [hidden email]
>
>
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> View this message in context:  
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[Fred Townsend]

George: I don't see a big problem with low temps. In my younger years I used
to do a lot of environmental testing for locations around the world
including the north slope of Alaska. Most components work very well. Things
like CMOS slow down a bit when they get hot so cold is better. The gain of
transistors does fall off a bit when cold but that is seldom a problem. The
things we had the most problem with were not semiconductors. Vinyl and some
other plastics get very brittle at even moderately low temperatures. Things
like LCDs may have a problem. LCDs definitely get cooked by uv so you will
want to protect from sustained direct sunlight. Finally switches and other
mechanical devices that are lubricated need to be relubricated with a
silicon base grease rather than a carbon base.

BTW the military now uses a lot of COTS products. COTS means Commercial Off
The Shelf. That's mostly because COTS works well and is a whole lot cheaper.


de Fred, AE6QL

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email]
[mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of GeorgeP1111
Sent: Monday, August 01, 2011 8:41 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [Elecraft] T1 Operational Temperature Limits?

I'm just about ready to put up a 44' Doublet and feed it with 300 ohm Twin
Lead.  I'm going to connect the Twin Lead to a balun and the T1 at the base
of the Doublet mast and run about 35' of RG213 back to the shack and my
FT-817ND (soon to be a KX3).

I was wondering if the T1 could withstand the cold temperatures we get here
in Minnesota.  I wrote Elecraft Support asking if there were any specs or if
they thought a temp of -30 to +100 F would cause any problems.  Dale
responded, "We do not have any real information on what the temperature
limits are, so we suggest you post on the reflector and ask for input from
other T1 users who have over the years had T1's out in varying environmental
conditions."

Any "Snowmen" out there?

Also.... I'll be needing a BL2 balun so if someone has one they don't
need/use, drop me a note off list.

tnx
de George
WD0AKZ

[hidden email]


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[Tony Estep]

On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 12:10 AM, Fred Townsend <[hidden email]>wrote:

> ...BTW the military now uses a lot of COTS products. COTS means Commercial
> Off
> The Shelf. That's mostly because COTS works well and is a whole lot
> cheaper....
>
---------

Yeah, here's a story about that: one of my sons is a researcher at Penn
State engineering some stuff for the Navy that involves position/motion
sensors. They were using a MilSpec gadget that cost hundreds of dollars, but
they replaced it with some stuff from the inside of a Wii that cost 60 cents
and worked much better. Now they (and many others) are building gadgets
based on hacking up a Kinect.

Tony KT0NY

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[GeorgeP1111]

Thanks to all that responded.

I did consider heater like Ron suggested, but in my remote control configuration the DC power is going to be supplied only while the station is in use (12v bench supply is on).  Turning on the 12v supply to the tuner energizes a relay removing the antenna from ground and applying it to the balun, it turns on the tuner, and after 2 seconds it pulls the tune command line low for 1 second to initiate tuning.  When I turn off the bench supply, the tuner shuts off and the antenna relay grounds the antenna so the heater would also be off.

I could work around all of this by running a multi-cable out to the tuner for pwr/control vs running the DC on the coax as planned which I may end up having to do.... We'll See.

tnx agn for the suggestions/help.

de George
WD0AKZ
dit - dit