[Boatanchors] Can Crystals Heal?

[Mark V Johnson]

I know, no they can't, nor can any electronic devices, but I've been working
on an older Yaesu FT-301 and experienced an interesting occurrence. 

 

The 8998.5khz crystal failed and that took out LSB mode on most bands and CW
on all the bands. I suppose we've all experienced crystal failures in old
rigs. 

 

Just for fun I hooked up my RF signal generator; through a .01 cap, right
across the failing crystal as I was too lazy to unsoldered the failing
crystal from the board. With pretty hefty output I was able to simulate the
crystal being OK and LSB and CW modes came back as expected. Radio worked
fine. 

 

What was odd was when I removed the signal generator, the rig kept working.
The failing crystal had "healed." Even with the radio off for hours and
doing repeated power on / off cycles, the crystal and the rig kept working. 

 

This won't last I'm sure, so I found new crystals from a supplier; another
shock as it has been my experience with this rig that nothing is available
anymore, and will replace the intermittent crystal.

 

Did the strong signal generator output at 8998.5 "wake up," this crystal?

 

Mark V Johnson

VE3LU