[Hammarlund] Need suggestions of professional Hammarlund restoreres for SP-600-JX-1

[Todd Bigelow - PS]

K. Rice wrote:

>Dear Friends,
>
>I'm seeking a professional electrical restorer for an SP-600. I have
>appended a  complete description with numbers, etc, below my signature.
>

Hi Ken -

Welcome to the list and congrats on the wonderful gift. It's nice to 
know folks think highly enough of us to keep us in mind for such things, 
particularly during such a rough time for themselves.

You have an excellent radio there, Ken. Properly restored and working, 
it is perhaps the best receiver for what we refer to as 'band cruising', 
or making rapid and easy excursions from one end of the dial to the 
other. It's also great for just casual SW listening. The main tuning has 
flywheel weighting added for ease of tuning and a silky smooth feel. 
Audio is also very respectable, sensitivity is very good to excellent 
and stability is as well, once any bad components have been replaced and 
the proper tap has been selected on the transformer.

 In the not-so-distant past the SP-600s had a pretty bad reputation for 
drifting and for having bad capacitors in them. The drifting is usually 
attributed to improper tap selection (something pointed out to me by Les 
Locklear, another '600 aficionado), and the 'bad caps' rap came from 
some of the units having a specific type of Sprague capacitor installed. 
These caps, often referred to as 'Black Beauties'  tend to crack and 
leak oil after a period of time, which diminishes the performance of the 
rig (to say the least). There are other black caps out there as well 
(some also made by Sprague) which do *not* have this problem. 
Unfortunately somewhere along the line the information went from someone 
who knew their stuff to someone who wanted to sound like they did, and 
the original info ended up in the corrupted form of  '*all* caps are bad 
in *all* SP-600s, so you must replace them *all*'. In fact, many later 
SP-600s have mica and ceramic caps throughout and none of the older 
'tubular' types. In the last year or two as more people have discovered 
these fine receivers, a better level of clarity and understanding has 
replaced the inaccurately parroted stories from before, and the SP-600 
has regained its previous reputation as a great receiver - and then some.

I'm not sure how receptive he'd be to being called an 'expert', but my 
recommendation would be hands down for Al Parker to help you out with 
whatever you need. Al is one of the folks responsible for the Hammarlund 
Historian site online and he's been restoring these fine rigs for a 
while, now. There are a couple other guys who dabble in them a bit, but 
if it were up to me, I'd go with Al. He does excellent work, he's 
honest, and he likely knows the SP-600 as well or better than anyone 
else out there.
Here's his information:

Al Parker, W8UT
New Bern, NC

email: 

anchor@ec.rr.com

Homepage:

http://www.thecompendium.net/radio/

Hammarlund Historian page:

http://www.hammarlund.info



Good luck with the rig, Ken. I'm sure you'll enjoy as much or more than 
any receiver you've ever operated.

73, Todd/'Boomer'  KA1KAQ