[Boatanchors] National NC-140 receiver? (and a long ramble)

[Phil]

Hello all,

Circa 1963-64 when I was stationed at RAF Croughton England, I was the 
proud owner of a Hallicrafters S-120 I bought in the BX.  Had a lot of 
fun with that set.  Then a friend down the hall mail-ordered a National 
NC-140. WOW, what a radio, it blew the doors off my S-120 ;-) A real "S" 
meter as well as calibrated bandspread for both the SWL broadcast and 
Ham bands, calibrator, and a pretty blue to boot!

Anywhooo, today one arrived on my porch from a friend in Oregon who 
wants me to align it (and do any other maint it might need).  Said it 
seems to play reasonably well but maybe a bit deaf.  So it must be in 
fairly good condition.  No, I haven't fired it up yet, need to set up a 
speaker for it.  I 'robbed' the test speaker from my maint bench to use 
on the TYT 9800 in the pick-um-up truck. Guess I'll go to the truck stop 
manana and see if they have a decent CB speaker to put back on the maint 
bench.  Then, even though the radio's been in use (at least some), I 
intend to bring it up slowly on the Variac just for safety (the 10A 
Variac I bought has an isolated secondary so it combines isolation 
transformer and Variac all in one).

Boatanchors are really my favorite genre of radio, grew up on tubes, 
LOVE R-390A's and SP-600s but only work on 'mini-BAs' now.  A number of 
years ago the small dining table I used for a bench collapsed in the 
middle under the weight of an R390A and the radio nearly landed on my 
foot, would have if I hadn't wrenched my back catching it.  That's when 
Wifey said NO MORE BOATANCHORS!  Can't really manhandle them now anyway.

But this is about the NC-140.  I have the basic Instruction manual here, 
schematic and a sheet showing alignment, all a bit blurry.  May try to 
find a manual download on line.

I've worked on a LOT of tube radios since I got my start around 1953, 
but my real question is this. . .

Does the NC-140 have any "gotchas" that I should watch for, or is it 
pretty straight forward??

-- 
73 From "The Beaconeer's Lair"
Specializing in DXing NDBs (Longwave Beacons)
Phil, KO6BB,  http://www.qsl.net/ko6bb/
KO6BB/B beacon, ~20W on 28.290 MHz, Ringo Vertical

HF/LF RADIOS:
HOMEBREW:   7 Tube+Rect 1v3 Regen RX for LF (built 2015)
Icom:       IC-7200 Xceiver, DSP IF & filters (~2015).
Kenwood:    TS-450SAT Xceiver, cascaded 250/125Hz Inrad filters.
10M Beacon: 2 x Realistic HTX-100's on 28.290MHz
SDR:        Softrock Ensemble II LF (built from a kit 2017).

ACC:   HOMEBREW  LF-MF Pre-Amp, 8Hz Audio Filter.
        HOMEBREW  4 Port Antenna Multicoupler, Feeds 4 RX's.
        
ANTENNAS: 88 foot Long Ladder-line fed dipole, 35 feet AGL for MW/SW.
           Active Mini-Whip, 36 Feet AGL for LF/MW/SW.
           37 foot "Low Noise Vertical", 11 feet AGL for LF/MW/SW.
           Cushcraft AR-10 Ringo Vertical, 14 feet AGL for 10M beacon.
Merced, Central California, 37, 18, 37N   120, 30, 6W CM97rh


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