Exciter identification

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Electronically
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Re: RE: Re: Exciter identification

Post by Electronically » Fri May 08, 2020 6:18 am

Albert H wrote:It's funny that these were called the "Dawson Driver" as it was actually "Kenny Myers" of RFL who designed them. I believe that the first PCBs for these were done by a guy who used to live down in Shirley (near Dawson's old place) and who ran "SLR".
Spot on Albert. The guy Mike Hudson mentioned in his article it was in a book but he couldn't mind who made it.

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teckniqs
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Re: Exciter identification

Post by teckniqs » Fri May 08, 2020 10:44 am

I was actually told by KG/Dawson himself that the Dawson driver board was originally a S**v* M*y design which didn't work properly so he modified it to work. I am not the only person who was told this as well. ...But a lot of people often talk a lot of shit if it's to make them look better, which I think it sounds like the case here.

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Re: Exciter identification

Post by Albert H » Sat May 09, 2020 4:39 am

St*v* M*y didn't design anything. He just copied (or stole) other people's work. He was one of the earliest of the copiers. It used to be quite amusing to use an obscure value resistor (for no good reason!) or two in a run of gear, and then find that same value turning up in gear built by others.

Myers came up with the idea of improving the sensitivity of the 74HC4024 by biasing the clock input pin at half rail. I found that you could get even more sensitivity by slightly offsetting the bias from half rail.....

The 4046 is convenient as a phase comparator, but I preferred using a 7474 and four NAND gates. It takes up a bit more board area, but gives a really solid and reliable "Lock" output.

Incidentally, it's funny that Dawson's real initials are AKG!
"Why is my rig humming?"
"Because it doesn't know the words!"
;)

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