[Boatanchors] A good "Starter" project for newbies.

[Philip Atchley]

Hi,

Most of the "old timers" probably already know this, so let's just say 
this is for "newbies" to BA re-work.

Often a person will buy a Boatanchor receiver, either in working 
condition or otherwise and decide it needs to be recapped and 
overhauled.  Sometimes this is pre-determined for him by the condition 
of the set, I.E. not working properly.

All too often they've not had any experience in recapping, re-working 
old vacuum tube equipment at all and receive a LOT of help from the 
elmers on this and other radio lists.  This is good, but can sometimes 
lead to them inadvertently putting other problems into the set, 
sometimes these are harder to fix than the original problem.  Especially 
if you have very little test gear and experience.

Now to the subject at hand.  I have LONG used signal tracers in my 
various electronic endeavors.  They are VERY useful tools and CHEAP to 
buy too!  Down at the shop where I do part time audio repair I have an 
old Eico unit that cost me a dollar at a hamfest and a few dollars more 
for new filter capacitors.  It's overall physical condition is pretty 
sad, but it has saved me many, many hours of troubleshooting amplifiers, 
tuners, microphones, you name it!  Not only does it serve as a test 
amplifier, it also serves as test speaker, Test output transformer etc.

NOW, the other day I was GIVEN a Knightkit signal tracer for free.  Very 
similar to the Eico test instrument. Somebody heavily modified it's 
pre-amp and it wasn't functional.  Guess somebody thought they knew more 
than the Knight engineers 8^)  So, it's in the process of getting an 
overhaul and put back to the original circuitry.  It'll get new filter 
caps as well as paper capacitors replaced.  I actually like the circuit 
of this one better than the Eico!

The upshot is, these units are VERY cheap to buy, extremely easy and 
economical to overhaul and repair compared to, say a Hallicrafters SX-62 
or BC-1004 and, when finished provides the technician with a very useful 
tool for troubleshooting other equipment they subsequently work on. 
Every tech should have one on his bench along with the VTVM (or DVM), 
tube tester and signal generator!

73 de Phil,  KO6BB
991 Different NDB's heard to date.

http://www.geocities.com/ko6bb/
Merced, Central California, 37.3N  120.48W  CM97sh