On a lark a week or so ago I won an eBay auction for a receiver that I've not seen often but have always wanted to own — the Ameco R5 receiver.
The one on eBay was another gamble. The woman who listed it said it was dirty and dusty and condition was unknown. Credit her for at least not saying the previous owner said “it worked fine.” She admitted she did not know.
Now I didn't know much about the radio either, but she did say it powered up. At least that meant the power supply section wasn't gone. I like the look of the Ameco, and figured what the heck. For the price I paid, I could easily clean it up and send it back to eBay without losing money.
I also bought an Autronic Corp. single lever CW key. I love the look of the Autronic key, and the one this same seller had was in better shape than the one I own. The price was right, so I jumped on it.
I was expecting the worst with the receiver after I unboxed it today. I plugged it in and plugged in headphones. i was shocked to hear the rush of static when I hit the power switch — huh?? I shut it off again quickly. No tubes can heat up that quickly!
Turns out the Ameco is a solid-state receiver! Boy, from the looks of it you would believe it was an old tube receiver! I was fooled!
Does it receive? Yes, surprisingly enough. It needs to be aligned, but it's fully functional. The contacts are all dirty, and the pots noisy. That's not surprising, given the amount of dusty and dirt on the rig. It had a good bit of cigarette smoke on it too.
Using just 2 jumper clips in series as the antenna, I was able to monitor 75 meters SSB without much trouble. The rig turned out a bit drify. I found the manual online, and it's not bad. I still don't know the vintage of the rig, but since its all solid state its probably not too old an idea.
I want to hook the rig to a real antenna and see how it works, I would love to get the drift fixed too, but that may just be the poor design. I may have to add a bunch of new tubes too. Ack!
The companion for this type of receiver is the old old AC-1. Actually it predates this receiver by several years. It's interesting that Ameco still sells its line of equipment.
I cleaned the exterior today and got most of the grime. The inside looks good, I may just remove the covers and see if I can clean it up and maybe align it.
That's it for now from my QTH … 73 es GN, de KY4Z …. dit dit ….