I am trying to locate a history or timeline of Dentron products. Every one of their tuners I have owned has been well built. The "crown prince" of their tuners seems to be the T-3000A which I have recently acquired. However, there seem to be tuners that they made for which I can find no documentation whatsoever. For instance, I own a well-built SUPER SUPER TUNER (not a typo...) which can be seen on my QRZ page. Physically it is almost as large as the Ameritron amplifier sitting of top of it. Also, I have previously owned a DT3-KA which I never find mentioned anywhere and it appears to be a "souped up" version of the MT3000A tuner...with larger meters and rack handles. I have done numerous searches and found a few references to the fact that the company was dissolved over a community property settlement and then sold to MFJ, but nothing definitive. If anyone can link to a detailed history of Dentron, I would appreciate and it would be enjoyable reading.
I enjoy the Dentron line as well, having acquired the W-1 & W-2 meters and the jr. monitor as well as a GLA-1000 amp, with all its idiosyncrasies. You learned more about their past than I knew, so this should be a fun thread for me.
The use of wire instead of silver plated strap, the use of connecting wire to the inductor taps, that put me off on Dentron. But I bought a Super Tuner when they first came out.
Dentron also made a companion, look a like amp to go with the DT3-KA. I once owned the pair and wish I had not sold them
The founder/owner of Dentron is still alive and kicking and quite active: Denny Had, W4USR in Cary, NC. Why not reach out to Denny and see if he has a "Dentron History" writeup already done? He might.
My first amp was a Dentron GLA1000 sweep tube amp. Worked pretty good if you did not push it to hard. I had a lot of fun with that little amp. I then acquired a Clipperton L, and Clipperton V. The V was a 2 meter amp and was nothing but problems from day one. I never had a Dentron tuner- they sure looked nice and well built. I later purchased an Amp Supply LA1000, another sweep tube amp. Amp Supply was one of Denny Hads later companies. Denny got into building high power car audio amps. He probably got sick of dealing with hams- LoL! A history of Dentron would be interesting. They did make a few nice products.
Thanks...I sent him an email. FYI...his QRZ page is loaded with a lot of info on antenna building and various projects he has been working on.
I haven't "talked" with Denny in years, but have worked him on CW many times. Big signal out of NC on 40CW. I didn't own much Dentron stuff, but my first experience on 160m was using a Dentron 160m transverter...I forgot the model number, but it would put your HF rig on 160m if your rig didn't cover 160m -- which back then, many did not. It worked! It actually worked fine. The Clipperton-V for 2 meters was not one of their finest efforts. I repaired several of those for people who owned them back in the 70s, and first thing was to add grid current metering, which it did not have -- and the 4X150A grid is by far the most important thing to meter, as overcurrent to the grid wastes the tube in seconds, not months. I still hear quite a few Dentron and Amp Supply amps on the air, to this day on HF. Denny's a good CW op.
Go to www.af4k.com. Has quite a few links on that page to the history of Denton. (Look under Boat Anchors - History) On edit... Sorry to say, many of the links no longer work.
