Friday, Oct. 23, 2015 — Success! Success! Woo hoo!!
That’s right, I received the needed 6BA7 tube in this weeks mail, so tonight I decided to go to work on the Hallicrafters HA-5 VFO.
The tube came out in pieces, literally. I had to take pliers to pull the pins out of the socket. With the new tube in place, next I had to do something with the fuse holder that had been half -assed hacked into the circuit.
I removed the one lead that wasn’t broken, then created two new leads from some stranded 12 or 14 gauge wire, and used that to wire the fuse holder in place. I also insulated the metal contacts on the fuse holder so they would not be able to come in contact with parts of the chassis or nearby electronic components.
I decided not to install a better fuse holder for now … I took the path of least resistance. If I have to dive into the VFO again, well, I may likely make some changes to “neaten” things up.
NO BEUGLAR YET. It should be no surprise that I haven’t found that Beuglar pinstriping tool. Of course, I’m assured to find it now — an eBay seller just listed one on eBay — a “vintage” (i.e., OLD) one for like $20, too cheap to pass up. This purchase will definitely trigger Zed’s Corrollary to Murphy’s Law — “You’ll never find what you’ve misplaced until you purchase its replacement.”
Zed’s Corrollary is the reason why we have seven hammers in our laundry room … never can find one when you need it.
NEXT PROJECT? My new-to-me Heathkit SB-102 is staring me in the face here in the shack, and I’m thinking of ordering new electrolytics as a precautionary measure. I’ve already found how to string the dial string for the load adjustment, and I can come up with o rings for the other adjustments.
I know Heathkit purists like to buy the exact size O rings, but in the past I’ve had good luck buying o-rings and then cutting them and supergluing the ends together. Its the easiest way to put them on, and worked fine for me in the past.
A project I’m seriously considering is buying the updated power supply board. It would be nice to have a power supply that I KNOW will have good clean DC voltages.
But its really next on my list … I’m hoping it will work without a lot of additional troubleshooting … yeah, I know, I’m wishing, which is cheap and easy, lol. I need to buy some deoxit if I’m going to work on these old rigs.
Right now I think I have three Heathkit SB transceivers … I have a used and abused one in the barn that looks like hell; I have the one staring at me, and then I have one still boxed up in the back of my Jeep (I think its an SB-102). I also have an SB power supply in the barn, and another in the back of the Jeep I pickup up at a hamfest.
And yeah, I still have the Flex 3000 sitting over here in the box that I need to get on the air. And I have Hallicrafters FPM 300 on the operating position awaiting the X-Lock VFO stabilizer. I need to built it and get it installed. Yeah, I have a list of stuff to do, so fixing the HA-5 was a step in the right direction. I need to get my frequency counter out now to check the output (if there is any).
That’s all this time … 73 es CUL de KY4Z SK … dit dit …