Boatanchors! (tube ham radio)

[JohnFreeman]

GeorgeL mentioned em, I love em.

They're easy to work on, they work well, they're American and they glow in the dark. What's not to like?

Heath, Drake, Collins, Swan, Hammarlund, Hallicrafters, EF Johnson, WRL/Globe, and of course homebrew.... what do you like? What are you working on?

 

[htperry]

 

[htperry]

If I remember right, the first Monday of each month on 3.938 Mhz is "tube night". Any radio with at least 3 tubes.

I used to participate on 3.938 a good bit, but not in the last couple years. They have a tech net on Wednesday nights, too.

 

[Jeepsnguns]

Gave this one to my brother, so no tubes at the moment...

 

[htperry]

I used to have a FT-101. Great radios.

I've also had a number of Swan and Siltronix radios in the past.

 

[georgel]

I have a Yaesu FT902DM, awaiting power re-conditioning and reformatting. That is, after I build a new power cable with the exceedingly rare connector that I finally found.
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[noway2]

Can you still get replacement tubes? Last I heard, only the Russians were still making tubes.

 

[JohnFreeman]

I have a Yaesu FT902DM, awaiting power re-conditioning and reformatting. That is, after I build a new power cable with the exceedingly rare connector that I finally found.
\

I have a couple 901's and they're fantastic radios....great audio...

 

[georgel]

Can you still get replacement tubes? Last I heard, only the Russians were still making tubes.

I found a couple of sources. But supplies are dwindling.

 

[htperry]

Can you still get replacement tubes? Last I heard, only the Russians were still making tubes.

I have a spare set of tubes for my Tempo 2020. I think they are the same as the FT901/902, 6146b and 12by7a.

Interesting factoid, the Tempo was designed by Yaesu, built by Uniden and marketed in the USA as the Henry Tempo 2020.

The problem with holding tubes unused is that they become gassy. You can take old tubes, connect a power supply to the filament connections and bring the voltage up slowly and let them "cook" for days (or longer) to de-gas them. Sometimes it works, other times not. I have a Dyna-Jet 707 tube tester if any of you ever need to test tubes or cook them off.

As georgel knows, I have too much test gear, radio gear and (vintage) components. 40+ years as an electronic and radio tech has left me overburden. I have donated all my electronics stuff to schools a couple times and it just re-spawns.

 

[htperry]

Are the tubes anything like what they use in tube guitar amplifiers. If so they still make quite a few tubes for many amps. You may want to check that for a source

There's really not shortage of tubes for old radios. There are even individuals that will custom make almost any tube. The real problem is tubes at a price we all remember down at the Eckerds drug. NOS tubes are just so damn expensive. NOS 6146b tubes $50/ea. Ouch!

 

[htperry]

I decided to warm up the Tempo. It's not been on in 6 months. Sounds great.

 

[htperry]

Here's the complicated sprocket and chain system in the Tempo that coordinates all the internal stuff when you start twisting the knobs on the front. It's quite a nightmare.

 

[JohnFreeman]

Heath Mohawk / Apache twins (RX-1 and TX1) and the Collins 32V2/75A1 combo. Great table top AM'ers. The amp is the 2x3-500z Tentec, good for 1.3kw out.

 

[JohnFreeman]

Hard to call 'em boatanchors as they're so small, but a couple pairs of Drake twins ... excellent radios.

 

[JohnFreeman]

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A couple of very late Heathkits, the HW5400 and the SS9000 (the last Heath ham rig--- the kit that was too hard to build to be a kit, as it turns out). I believe they only shipped 200

 

[JohnFreeman]

An EFJ Navigator transmitter and Drake 2B receiver.... my favorite boatanchor CW station.

 

[JohnFreeman]

This is a pretty rare one--- a HyGain Xcvr made by National Panasonic in the early 80's I think. It cost $2k at the time so very few were sold. This thing has tube finals, which is odd. It's a nice rig to operate

 

[JohnFreeman]

Another mini-Boatanchor...a Drake C-line, with a Hallicrafters HA5 VFO. It's a great CW station

 

[JohnFreeman]

Old receiver someone built from the 1962 ARRL handbook. Worked a guy on 40CW using it today. If you look at the top you can see the Nuvistor tubes in the preselector at the top. It's been sitting long enough the knobs are growing fuzz. I got it working a few days ago. It's a good performer but as broad as a barn!

 

[htperry]

This is a pretty rare one--- a HyGain Xcvr made by National Panasonic in the early 80's I think. It cost $2k at the time so very few were sold. This thing has tube finals, which is odd. It's a nice rig to operate

That's beautiful.

 

[JohnFreeman]

This is a pretty rare one--- a HyGain Xcvr made by National Panasonic in the early 80's I think. It cost $2k at the time so very few were sold. This thing has tube finals, which is odd. It's a nice rig to operate

That's beautiful.

It's a lot of fun to operate. Built like a brick...s_house too. The dial light is out on this one but I haven't gotten the energy to pull it out of the stack and pull all the controls off to get to it . It's really big... after I got it, I found the matching external VFO and speaker, and then another backup set of all 3 that has a bad florescent display driver. I need to make room (and time) to get the whole thing set up, as it's a very impressive line up. I found the matching 6m transceiver too... it's next to the bench. Oh...as soon as these were released, WARC happened, and instantly all HF rigs were obsolete if they didn't have 30/17/12. This didn't so HyGain pulled the plug.

 

[noway2]

i remember going to the drug store to buy TV tubes and test TV tubes with my grandfather back in chicago when i was really young...

Same here. It seems like it was a weekly event on Saturday mornings. Then they started coming out with these fancy "solid state", I.e. transistor based ones.

but i don't know a thing about them

I know very little about them. I know you can make diodes and transistors that behave like FETs, but I've never worked with them. Their power capacity is better then (small scale) transistors and they're far more noise immune (think surviving and EMP). I wouldn't be opposed to acquiring some old tube radio gear but I wouldn't want something that is going to try and leave me with a brick.

 

[JohnFreeman]

I wouldn't be opposed to acquiring some old tube radio gear but I wouldn't want something that is going to try and leave me with a brick.

That's a valid concern, but in fact it's really not a worry. Old gear is far easier to maintain (it was meant to be fixed) and there's a ton of tubes out there.

I've been into this for ~25 yrs (boatanchor radios), and I've yet to wear out a tube. They're probably the most suspected culprits and rarely the root cause.

Nowadays bricks are much more likely to be found in modern rigs. The Icom/Kenwood/Yaesu stuff is marginally repairable and once the magic smoke leaves some of the custom devices, it's getting increasingly difficult or impossible to find replacements. Displays? they're custom and not likely to be available long. Even the PA's in the ubiquitous IC706 are now obsolete.

The almost unobtaimium are transformers.... but in fact treated sensibly BA gear is quite reliable and long lived. (I'm pretty sure I can keep my heath TX1 Apache running longer than my heath SS9000!)


John

 

[JohnFreeman]

Man I love having time off!

I got this guy going today. I replaced the 66 year old electrolytic filter caps with a new set today and cleaned up some wiring that was mangled by a previous owner.

I put it on 7040 and sent a CQ and got a call on my first transmission. Who knows how many years it's been since this thing made RF . It's a an oscillator/Power amp, with a single 807 providing the amp. It's chirp free and puts out a mighty 20 watts. A subsequent CQ brought another solid QSO with a guy in Pa using an oldish HW-100 transceiver.

Fun stuff. It's amazing how SIMPLE a radio can be. TWO active devices ( 6AG7/807) and we have a solid transmitter. Both tubes are likely the original ones.

 

[htperry]

When I started learning electronics, tubes ruled the world. Once I entered as a profession, tubes still dominated but transistors and PLL were on the rise. I really enjoy(ed) tube equipment repairs. Boat anchors rule, in the old days.

Great pics, John. Thanks!