[ARC5] BC-459 Drift

[Mark K3MSB]

Well, I think I have the problem licked.

I used 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper to clean behind the wiper arms of each of
the 3 air variable caps, then cleaned with a bit of DeOxit.

I put the transmitter back in the rack and the tone sounded good with no
drift,  but then I noticed the power output was fluxuating a great
deal.      I pulled my phones off at that point, and then I heard the sound
of arcing.   With my vast level of expereince in ARC-5's I deeded this to
be not good.  So, I played with the tuning and that didn't seem to have
much effect.  At that point I realized that the arcing was not coming from
the transmitter, but the the small matching unit I built to connect to my
50 ohms antennas (4:1 UNUN and an old HT-37 tuning capacitor).    I removed
the side panel from the Bud Box that houses my matching unit and my oh my
was that arcing pretty.    For some reason the rotators are closer to the
stators than I remember, so I bent the offending rotator plate a bit, and
the arcing stopped and power output was nominal (about 50W).

I did not notice the drift problem like I originally reported but the tone
still has more chrip in it than I'd like.   I want to play with it for a
while and see how it performs.

73 Mark K3MSB