[Hammarlund] Re: Repair help on SP-600 JX-26 (M)

[Les Locklear]

The John R. Leary Re-engineered SP-600's are all one of a kind. In addition 
to the "pink" cans, some were blue, red and other various colors.

I owned no. 31, 32 and and one that wasn't numbered, a black face with a 
product detector. It was marked as a Pro-600.

John (who has since passed on) wasn't very good at documenting his 
modifications, as Avery mentioned. Many of the mods simply weren't written 
down, even though he would supply a copy of a manual with his notes in it.

Bill Mills in Georgia was documenting how many and the names of the people 
who owned them at one time. Cecil Acuff who lives about 8 miles from me has 
a Leary modified SP-210X which is "Grasshopper Green."

These SP-600's were all hot receivers in more ways than being extremely 
sensitive. He did modifications to the agc circuit and mounted it in a 
transformer can mounted on the chassis, the trimmers for it were 
electrically hot.....not noted in his notes either. He replaced the 2nd 
mixer tube and had a cathode adjust knob on the front panel of one of them, 
very hot above 15 mhz! The one thing he did which I always wondered why he 
did it was to replace the 6V6 audio section with his version of the Collins 
75A4 with a 6AQ5, the audio wasn't near as good.

He even re-engineered two National NC-400's into a NC-800.

He would typically take a stock SP-600, strip the chassis, replace all the 
bad capacitors, usually with ceramic discs, many resistors, add crystal 
calibrators, product detectors, or whatever the customer wanted in his 
particular Leary SP-600. He would re-wire the receiver in many cases. John 
must have had a large amount of white wire with a blue tracer, when trying 
to trace a problem, I turned it over to the underside of the chassis, 90% of 
the wiring was that very color.................:-)

My e-mail address is no longer Llgpt at aol.com. Now: leslocklear at cableone.net.

Good luck in getting someone local to repair it, if you have John's notes 
or, if he supplied a mnaual, make sure to give it to the person repairing 
it.

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!

LesLes Locklear
Monitoring Since '57
Located On the Gulf of Mexico
Gulfport, MS.
http://www.hammarlund.info/homepage.html


What fun that was!!!
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Comarow, Avery" <ACOMAROW at usnews.com>
To: "Phillip E Norvell" <p_norvell at sbcglobal.net>
Cc: <hammarlund at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, December 23, 2005 7:35 AM
Subject: RE: [Hammarlund] Re: Repair help on SP-600 JX-26 (M)


Whoo boy. You've got a Leary! "Restored" doesn't begin to describe what John 
Leary did with about 40 SP-600's. "Re-engineered" is more like it. His 
redone SP-600s are legendary for their revamped design--each was different 
from the other--and for out and out quirkiness. I owned No. 34, if I recall 
correctly. All the coil cans were painted pink, it had a separate power 
supply, and it had his call stencilled in BIG RED LETTERS on the front 
panel.

The guy who probably knows more about these radios than anybody is Les 
Locklear, who probably will respond on this list or you can email him at 
llgpt at aol.com. For an article about the Leary SP-600's, get your hands on 
issue 133 of Electric Radio (www.ermag.com).

As Les posted in one of his commentaries on the radios, there probably are 
too many modifications for you to be able to refer to the original 
schematic. Heck, it was hard enough for me to figure out what he'd done, and 
I had his notes, which consisted of hastily drawn schematics and scribbles 
in random order.

I hope, as you do, that your problem is small and easily fixable.

Where are you located?

Avery W3AVE
Potomac, Md.

-----Original Message-----
From: hammarlund-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:hammarlund-bounces at mailman.qth.net]On Behalf Of Phillip E
Norvell
Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2005 10:20 PM
To: hammarlund at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Hammarlund] Re: Repair help on SP-600 JX-26 (M)


Hi Hammarlund enthusiasts,

  I need a referral to some one who will work on a SP-600 JX-26 in, or near, 
NW Arkansas.

  The radio was restored in 1982 by w9whm, who I believe had the last name 
of Leary.  It looks great still.  And was a good radio, fun to use and play 
with, but it went dead on me about a year ago.  I have now decided to get it 
repaired.  Of course, i am hoping it is something minor.  I would also like 
to get a good long wire antenna installed for it, too.  I would prefer not 
to ship the radio.  Thanks.  Phillip



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