[AMRadio] HQ 180 back on the air

[Robert Sauvan]

Hi all,
I cant thank everyone enough for all of the tips and suggestions as to how
to troubleshoot my dead HQ180. After a week of digging into the thing we
have it working like new again, so far. We started by checking all of the
tubes and had to replace 3 bad ones right off the bat. After that, all the
wafer switches and tube pins were cleaned well. Turned it back on and it
began to play with a severe drift and a heterodyne on a SSB signal. It ran
about 20 minutes and "poof", something blew up and smoked. At this time, a
couple of capacitors and a resistor needed to be replaced. Due to this
happening, 3 more tubes needed to be replaced including the rectifier tube
which was replaced with one of newer style units. After all of that I now
have a champion running HQ180. Everyones suggestions were put into play. I
think everyone had the right answers to my original questions. I am looking
forward to putting it on the air for the "Classic Exchange" cw contest on
Sunday. I picked this 180 up to replace my 110A and what a difference in
receivers! I really owe all of the hard work to my friend who just lives a
block away. Barry AA6EV was the actual repair guy. I just watched closely
to see the expert at work. Check his qrz.com site to see some of his old
gear.


Thanks again to all and I look forward to hearing you on the AM bands-

Bob-W0YBS