Figuring out the Apollo microwave transmitter
Added 2021-07-28 07:47:47 +0000 UTCWe are making progress in figuring out the boxes we got from Steve Jurvetson. They are incredibly heavy. About 15 kg each, so 33 lbs. And it's not from the cases that are incredibly light - way lighter than aluminum.
The amplifier was a bear to take apart for reverse engineering. It's build inside the case from the bottoms up, layer upon layer. There is a lot of RF cabling to disconnect between four microwave relays. They are used for redundancy switching, allowing emergency reconfiguration of the two Traveling Wave Tube amplifiers, or even bypassing both.
We managed to disassemble enough to peer inside in search of the Traveling Wave Tubes.
We found them, but not at all where we expected it. We though they would be in the part that says "high voltage", but not at all. That part contains the antenna triplexer, which does not have high voltage in it. It has the high voltage accelerating supplies around it though. The two TWTs are way at the bottom on the other side of the case, underneath the rats nest of coaxes that go to the main connector plate. We barely managed to take a photo of one tube marking to confirm it:
The transponder is much more accessible, with the shell coming off the top. It is well labeled, but also much more complicated.
However we think we pretty much got it and know what each wire do.
We are currently hatching a plan on how to power it back up safely and test it.
Marc
