[Hammarlund] SP-600 J-3

[Al Parker]

Congrats Steve,
    You've made a nice find.  You can find a lot of info on the SP-600's at
The Hammarlund Historian website:
http://www.hammarlund.info
    Go to the Service section for service tips and a great article on
re-capping by Ray Vasek.  SP-600 model info on the SP-600 page, pix & info
in the H-Files section, and some manuals available for free download from
the Manuals page, as well as from Ken Grimm's great BAMA site,
http://bama.sbc.edu/
    You can look at past email questions/answers in this list's archives, at
<http://www.qth.net> for the ones thru 2001, or
http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/hammarlund/ for those since.
    If your SP-600-J-3 hasn't been used for a long time, it should be
brought up to full line voltage slowly, using a variac, after close
inspection under the chassis, and maybe some ohmeter checks.  It undoubtedly
has "BBOD's" black plastic encased paper capacitors, many of which are
already leaky, maybe cracked & split open, hopefully not shorted.  The
receiver may operate with many of these slightly bad, but they will get
worse with use, and more will fail, 1 by 1, so you can end up spending lots
of time hunting down bad ones.  The best thing to do is replace them all
(about 50).  Ray's article on the Hammarlund Historian website is a good
'heads up" on the process.
    There's lots of good advice to be had for the asking or looking.  There
are a lot of us out there that really like the old beauties.
73,
Al, W8UT
New Bern, NC
BoatAnchors appreciated here
http://www.thecompendium.net/radio/ - (some SP-600 info here)
http://www.hammarlund.info

----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Cooke" <sacooke@chem.ubc.ca>
To: <hammarlund@mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, November 27, 2002 1:48 PM
Subject: [Hammarlund] SP-600 J-3


> Dear All,
> I'm new to the group and apologise in advance if my question has already
> been covered in an earlier digest or is just to basic.  Briefly, I have
> recently renewed my interest in rf electronics by doing some simple "kit"
> radios from local hobby stores but nothing that adventurous as yet.  Along
> side my hobby im fortunate to work in a microwave spectroscopy lab.  To
> cut to the beef, recently whilst digging around in the lab I came across a
> Hammarlund SP-600 J-3 and naturally i was delighted.  A brief discussion
> with my boss indicates that it is probably in working order and had been
> used in the lab many years ago within a microwave circuit for signal
> generation (i can try and find out more about that if anybody should be
> interested).  So my very simple question is, what do i do with it now with
> respect to restoring it to its original glory?  Where do i find circuit
> diagrams for it etc?  I would be very grateful of any advice, things you
> wished you had known when you were in my position and so on.  This message
> was prompted by Al VE2TA recent mail on the same matter, but i feel im a
> somewhat behind Albert here. Thanks again,
> Steve Cooke