[Hammarlund] Travesty!!!! Yuk!

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 10:42 AM, Paul Kraemer <elespe at lisco.com> wrote:
> Hmmmm
> Maybe that is a direction I should take with the old BC-779 SP-200 I don't
> know what to do with since it followed me home 20 years ago. Been modified
> but not irreversibly. Any suggestions?

Depends how badly it's been hacked up, Paul. If it's not serious and
you want to enjoy the rig as an 'As-produced/designed' old radio,
putting it back to stock would be the way to go. This is my preferred
method since I can easily find newer radios that will do SSB or
anything the older gear won't do, or do well. OTOH, I do like drop-in
mods or changes that don't require drilling and blasting, as well as
getting out bad components that put items like power and audio
transformers at risk. I used to think 'if it ain't broke, don't fix
it' but realized one day than when it does break I'll still end up
replacing the offending caps, resistors, and probably a lot more.

I've got a pre-war SP-200SX sitting here in the queue that someone
modded by swapping all of the metal octal front end tubes for 9 pin
miniatures along with one other. They did a decent job of it by
removing the tube bases and using existing holes to mount metal plates
with the new sockets, then ran the grid leads neatly under the
chassis. Back when you could get surplus by the pallet and one
receiver was all you had, it made sense to get the most out of it. A
lot of literature exists on mods to the SP line, a good place to start
in the decision-making process.

~ Todd,  KA1KAQ/4