[Hallicrafters] SX-71 capacitor grommets, the REST of the story...

[RJB]

Good morning all
i'm the guy who asked a few weeks ago, about replacing the rubber
capacitor-mounting grommets in my SX-71. The responses varied from "if it
aint broke dont fix it", to "replace em with metal washers". Since the
original grommets were perished, broken and utterly crappy, i bought several
of the gum rubber rings sold by AES. With a regular black grommet in each
foot of the capacitor plus an AES rubber ring underneath, i was able to get
everything mounted at the right height, nice and shock free. (Yes it was a
total PITA removing and re-installing the tuning caps, but not as bad as
restringing the dial in my NC-300 :-{

So what?? Before this mod, the radio would break into oscillation on band 4
(12.8 - 34 mHz) whenever i QSY'd rapidly (ie, by spinning the main tuning
knob). Once the knob stopped spinning the oscillation usually quit in a few
seconds. Happy to say it no longer does this. For jollies i even replaced
the 6BA6 RF amp with a 6DC6 - much higher front-end gain and still no
oscillation.

New grommets rule! at least, in an SX-71

YMMV

thanks for all the help guys

Bob Bennett, Maple Vly, WA