Monday night, March 22, 2021
I finally wrapped up my recapping of that Hallicrafters PS-150-120 that I unearthed last year in the attic.
The power supply was missing the power cord; since I had to tear into it, I thought it was a good candidate to install new caps from Hayseed Hamfest.
Hayseed Hamfest offers recap kits for a wide range of classic rigs. They offer top-notch quality parts and I can’t say enough good things about the service they provide to those of us with classic gear.
The PS-150-120 had one dual capacitor can unit, and several electrolytics that installed under the chassis. It was impressive that the modern parts are so much smaller than the original parts; in fact, I initially thought they company left some of the parts out of the kit!
‘I don’t have a SR-150 handy to try the supply with, but I know I have the HT-44 transmitter handy, and it uses the same power supply.
INSTALLATION OF THE PARTS. I took lots of photos of the placement of the original parts, then I only removed and replaced one part at a time to insure proper connections. The one thing I couldn’t replace as intended was the dual can capacitor. The tabs on the can were well solder to the supply chassis, and even my 240-watt Weller didn’t have enough heat to flow the solder on the tabs. In the end, I had to lay the replacement can under the chassis, using hot glue to help secure it. Without using a Dremel, I didn’t see an easy way to get the can cap out, so the path of least resistance was to leave it in place.
I installed a 3-wire cord on the supply, but a thread about revamping the supply recommended against using a grounded 3-wire cord. I cut off the ground at the strain relief.
TEN-TEC OMNI V UPDATE. My love affair with the Ten-Tec Omni V.9 continues. I love listening to the radio and operating CW with the rig. Tonight I let the Hallicrafters SR-400 warm up and monitored with it for a while. Both radios have very quiet receivers.
The S-meter on the Omni is really “scotch” — very stingy. I turned the rig over and removed the bottom cover and adjusted the S-meter sensitivity. I pretty much used the patented Zed Man WAG method (i.e., Wild-Ass Guess). S-meters may have standards, but I consider the readings all relative, I just wanted the see the meter deflect when hit with strong signals, which it now does.
SPEAKING OF OMNI V.9. I’m thinking of adding the 250 Hz CW filter to the Omni V, or possibly, a filter for the one open spot in the 9 MHz IF. Last Saturday night the CW traffic net had to operate during the middle of a CW sprint contest, and a very, very crowded band. But with the Omni’s passband tuning and CW filter, I easily isolated the NCS’s signal.
PROGRESS ON STUDIO C. My progress of moving my shack to Studio C upstairs has pretty much come to a standstill with the arrival of Spring-like weather. The issue is that I need to make room upstairs for more of the shack contents. Studio C remains cluttered with boxes of stuff that my wife brought home from her mother’s estate. If we’re going to keep it, we need to find a home for it — probably in the attic. So I guess it means I need to go back to work in the attic. We have a lot of room in our main attic, but its not very efficiently arranged. I need to fix that situation.
WHAT’S LEFT IN THE ATTIC? I have my SX-101A receiver still in a box in the attic, and I have an FL-2100B amplifier. I originally considered selling the amp, but after reading reviews on it, it sounds like a very dependable and solid amp that could provide me with 500 watts for summertime conditions on 80 meters, and for DX work elsewhere.
We also have some junk we need to throw out — an old baby bed, a knocked-down dining room table, the remains of model airplanes for 45 years ago, a box spring and mattress. Not to mention 30 years of accumulated household junk. The attic had junk in it when we moved it, including original doors with broken panels and wood moldings.
SELLING MY KEYS?? One of the issues I still don’t have an answer for is what to do with my key collection. I don’t have room to display them, and I have accumulated a LOT of extra keys. I’m thinking of selling all but the keys I like the most — which means I’ll be shedding a lot of keys. My thoughts are to price them to sell, rather than do like many eBay sellers who list them at top prices. My goal is to sell, sell, sell. The next step is to figure out which ones to part with — a task that might be more difficult than I expect!
73 es CUL …. de KY4Z …. SK …. SK …. (dit dit)