[Exotics] Watkins Johnson HF Receiver

[JaMi Smith]

EXOTICS List,

I have a wj HF Receiver that I have has for several years, and I have
been meaning to ask about here on the EXOTICS list for several of those
several years, and just never gotten around to doing anything about it .
. .

Anybody out there ever had a similar problem (Hi Hi) . . .

It is made for the Navy, and the ID Tag reads as follows:

RECEIVER     RADIO
R-2036/SSQ-80)V)
PN WJ-8880     SERIAL B-3
CONTRACTOR 54774     MANUFACTURER 14632
NAVEL ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS COMMAND
CONTRACT N00039-77-C-0188
US

It appears to be a predecessor to the HF-1000, and is the same basic
size and shape (19 inch rackmount with the wj handles), but all Navel
Grey. The Panel Marking is done in black lettering, probably originally
silkscreened, some of which has been worn off. Most of the switches are
Lighted Pushbuttons where the function is engraved into the square cap.

Unlike the HF-1000, it DOES NOT have any DSP circuitry that I know of.

It DOES however have a number of internal Collens Mechanical Filters
which appear to correspond to the IF BANDWIDTH selections and some other
functions (see below).

Below is a description of the Front Panel knobs, switches, markings,
etc., followed by individual pushbutton engravings:

[TOP ROW LEFT TO RIGHT]

METER
[Analog panel meter for Signal Strength or Audio Level, above 3 small
pushbuttons - see below in Second Row for their data. This appears to
be a lighted type of meter with the light burned out.]

[Label] DETECTION MODE
[Above 8 Engraved Lighted Pushbuttons]
AM NL
AM
FM
ISB
USB
LSB
CW FIXED
CW VAR

To the right of this is a window labeled: BFO FREQ / kHz, which
contains 5 (qty) 7-Segment Green LEDs, where the window and
the LEDs are slightly smaller than the window and LEDs for the
main FREQUENCY Display immediately to its right.

At the top right of the Front Panel is the main display labeled:
FREQUENCY kHz, which contains 7 (qty) 7-Segment Green LEDs,
where the first 5 positions correspond to the frequency in kHz,
and the rightmost 2 digits follow a decimal point and indicate the
frequency to the nearest 10 Hz.

[MIDDLE ROW LEFT TO RIGHT]

[Under the Panel Meter described above, there are 3 small pushbuttons
with panel marking above each as follows]
SIGNAL STRENGTH
AUDIO LINE
AUDIO [WORN OFF]

[Label] GAIN MODE
[Above 4 Engraved Lighted Pushbuttons]
FAST
MED
SLOW
MAN  - - - - - - (This Pushbutton has a line going to a knob on a pot
below this button (see below))

[Label] IF BANDWIDTH kHz
[Above 6 Engraved Lighted Pushbuttons]
0.5
1
2
4
8
16

[Label] BFO TUNE (corresponds to BFO FREQ kHz Window)
[Above 2 Engraved Lighted Pushbuttons]
FAST (I assume, the top cap is missing, but still lights when pushed)
SLOW

[BOTTOM ROW LEFT TO RIGHT]

Standard 1/4 inch Phone Jack labeled PHONES

2 position Rotary Switch with small knob, labeled ISB AUDIO
on top line and then NORMAL and something else [WORN OFF]

Pot with small knob labeled AUDIO LEVEL

Pot with small knob labeled RF GAIN which directly beneath
MAN Pushbutton Switch in the GAIN MODE section in the middle
row above.

2 pots with small knobs with common label AUDIO LINE and a
bracketing line above independent labels of NORM for the left
knob and ISB for the right knob.

[Label] RCVR CONTROL
[Above 2 Engraved Lighted Pushbuttons]
LOCAL
RMTE    (see below)

To the right of this, covering the area of the Middle and Bottom
row, underneath the FREQUENCY display, is the Large tuning knob with
a big raised cavity for fast tuning with the finger (the original large
mother that everyone else tries to copy).

Immediately above the big Tuning knob is the small ID Tag with
all of data shown above, which is right under the FREQUENCY display.

Immediately to the right of the big Tuning knob]
[Label] TUNING RESOLUTION
[Above 4 Engraved Lighted Pushbuttons in vertical column]
FAST
MED
SLOW
LOCK

[On far right bottom row is small round Red Lighted
Pushbutton Switch labeled] POWER

I have owned this baby for several years, and used to have it on my
night stand so that I could listen to it at night, but my wife used to
complain about the lights and my playing around with it while she was
trying to sleep, so it got put into my Computer room, where it is
plugged in, but doesn't even have an antenna hooked up to it.

I have been inside of it when I first got it and pulled the covers, and
it has a mother board with a number of different boards plugged into it,
including one with a triple nicad (3.6V) cell about the size of a normal
AA, with 2 leads, one of which I cut, since it was dead and appeared to
be preventing the receiver from operating correctly at all (probably a
"backup battery" that was shorted out).

I also saw that it has a couple of boards that have all of the Collens
Mechanical filters on them, and there is a total number that correspond
to all the different IF Frequencies labeled on the front panel, plus a
couple of others for Upper and Lower Side Band, and a couple more which
appear to be for the ISB stuff.

There is also a Board in there with an 8080 uP, which appears to be the
primary controller for the who radio, and which has some EPROM  and also
some RAM. There is an RS232 connector on the rear panel, which means
that this baby can be computer controlled remotely via RS232, if one
knows how.

Ok.

Anybody out there in EXOTICS land know anything about this baby?

Does anyone know of a schematic?

Does anybody know anything about what codes might be required to
remotely control this thing.

It appears from the label that it is  Navel Version of a WJ-8880,
whatever that is.

It works fairly nice, although there is something not functioning
properly with the BFO Tuning and its separate little display.

It appears to not be getting a master Reset when it powers up, and
occasionally it comes up in a weird mode with a weird frequency display,
and sometimes with more than one light for a given function, and usually
just turning it off and then on again clears it up, and once it is
working correctly, it continued to be fine (except for BFO, but which
itself even occasionally appears to be working correctly).

I have planned for a long time to just take all of the boards out and
look for dirty contacts and bad capacitors, and also replace the
battery. I also have an 8080 disassembler somewhere, and I even thought
about dissassembling the 8080 control code, which is only about 1K if I
remember correctly, so that I could figure out it's remote control
codes.

Best laid plans . . .

It has currently been sitting in my computer room under an original IBM
PC and some other stuff, where I can't even get at it to look at the
rear panel, for at least the last 3 or 4 years (not quite a boat anchor,
but currently definately an IBM PC anchor) . . .

Anybody know where I can get some info on this baby?

Anybody know what it is worth?

Thanks, and 73 de KK6CU

JaMi Smith