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High Speed Switching (QSK) For the Drake L4B Amplifier Written By: Garry Drummond – K4OR
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I became interested in Full Break-In keying while operating CW during Field Day with the local radio club where an IC-7800 was at my disposal. After a short period of time, I fell in love with how smooth the 7800 operated in this mode. A while later, I ran across an article while doing an internet search, written by Rich Measures, AG6K, called High Speed Switching for Grounded Grid amplifiers. This immediately caught my attention and seemed like a great modification for the L-4B. Even if I didn’t continue to operate QSK, it seemed like a great way to silence and speed up the keying of a very fine amplifier. I searched the internet for any articles where an L-4B had been modified with this circuit. I came up zilch! I put out queries on the various amp reflectors and still got no response though I did find a few SB-220’s that had been modified with this circuit. Here is my adaptation of
Rich’s QSK circuit. I also incorporated an Electronic
Bias Switching circuit which uses a zener diode and pass transistor
to lower ZSAC. Rich sells the individual parts which
includes a reed relay but
I had modified my L-4B previously to accommodate a Harbach Electronics step-start relay so I no longer had the +120 VDC line into the RF deck from the power supply. So I used the transformerless power supply using the supplied parts to power the circuit. This gave a voltage of 170 VDC at 80 ma across the key line which was higher in voltage than my IC-746PRO could key. So I built a circuit designed by my good friend, Tom - W4NGW, using two transistors and four resistors as a buffer stage between the accessory jack on rig and amp and it works perfectly.
Anyone interested in this circuit should check out Rich’s website, www.somis.org and reference Figure #7. Any questions for me, feel free to contact me at k4or@arrl.net. 73, Garry Drummond – K4OR
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the vacuum relay. The parts kit does not include a
circuit board or instructions, but does include a schematic diagram
with good notes. I cut a piece of perf board to fit the
space and mounted the parts as shown. I used two pairs
from a length of CAT5 Ethernet to run from the board to the reed and
vacuum relays. I bent the component leads over and
solder them together under the circuit board. 
