[600MRG] RAKs and such - ballast tube.

Tue Nov 4 15:10:50 CST 2014

On 4 Nov 2014 at 10:40, NMF wrote:

> WWI was rife with ship board super-regens coupled directly to an antenna

No. Supers didn't come along until well after WWI. Armstrong invented that 
in 1922.

Regular regens were coupled directly to the antenna though, and caused 
interference. Due to the interference to BC listeners caused by home-made 
regens, they were called "bloopers".

> Still wondering about hydrogen in the ballast element envelope... Maybe 
> Nitrogen??

It is Hydrogen, all right. In a recent article I read about ballast tubes, a 
question was asked by the author on why the Navy would allow hydrogen in 
tubes on the ships. Perhaps they believed that the quantity was small 
enough it didn't matter.

Ken W7EKB