[Hammarlund] Hammarlund Digest, Vol 114, Issue 10
bonddaleena at aol.com
bonddaleena at aol.com
Sun Jul 7 10:15:14 EDT 2013
This was some GREAT reading! I particularly liked Mr. Teske's narrative.
I own a lot of the radios mentioned. At one point, I had 3 or 4 R-388s and they always amazed me. Once I found a 51J-3 it became a keeper.
Interestingly enough, my Collins 75A-4 was filled with the dreaded "black beauties of death" and once that was taken care of, it became a much better receiver. Luckily, there is a source for drum decals and these really improve the looks of these old beauties. I looked under the 51J3, and lo and behold, all dogbone caps. No wonder it worked so well even on 10 Meters. Adding an outboard SSB adapter and audio amp, made it even better.
One comment about '390 wrist'. A few years ago, I made a spinner handle for my 67 390A. It resembles the axial handle on a 75A-4 with 4:1 tuning. It worked so well, I added one to my other boatanchors. At least on my 390A, I can just crank the knob easily from one end of the PTO to the other. I made these in my machine shop and sold more than a few. They look original.
(I needed to do this due to MANY years of shooting big bore handguns, where the minimum caliber was .44 Magnum)
ron
N4UE
-----Original Message-----
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Sent: Sat, Jul 6, 2013 4:44 pm
Subject: Hammarlund Digest, Vol 114, Issue 10
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: Ultimate receiver?? (djed1 at aol.com)
2. Re: SP-600 and drift-- (Todd, KA1KAQ)
3. Re: SP-600 and drift-- (Arthur Delibert)
4. Re: SP-600 and drift-- (James A. (Andy) Moorer)
5. SP-600 and Drift (Charles Ochs)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2013 14:38:03 -0400 (EDT)
From: djed1 at aol.com
To: jdteske at verizon.net, bavarianradio at comcast.net,
Hammarlund at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [Hammarlund] Ultimate receiver??
Message-ID: <8D047C5EB2AC871-1F64-5B877 at webmail-m134.sysops.aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
So Jon- were there really any black-faced R-390s in the places you visited?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Ed
-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Teske <jdteske at verizon.net>
To: bavarianradio <bavarianradio at comcast.net>; Hammarlund <Hammarlund at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Fri, Jul 5, 2013 2:22 pm
Subject: Re: [Hammarlund] Ultimate receiver??
I knew of one intercept station that was aware of the preference for SP-600's
for RFP (Radio Finger Printing).
The local maintenance shop at the site ginned up an outboard freq. counter to
solve that problem. (Of course
an R-390 was no better than the local calibration shop, something we on the IG
team looked.) One of the service
officers on the IG team wanted to "gig" (write up) this as a violation of
policy. I convinced him that the thing
that was dumb was the policy, not the hook-up.
We had a VERY few Racals, used in a special project. The problem with Racals was
that they weren't US. I rather
liked them the few times I got to use one, but like many things in the military,
we needed a supply pipeline. Racal
ultimately got a US presence (did they work with Watkins-Johnson?) WJ built a
lot of our VHF/UHF gear and
had a facility in suburban Washington to deal with the "Bigger" DOD. (I was
concerned only with intercept-type
activities.)
Again, I was more of a policy and budget guy, so my exposures to these Rcvrs was
transitory. Unlike most policy
and budget guys, I at least knew how receivers (and other gear) worked and I
knew which end of a soldering iron
was the hot side.
Jon W3JT
On 07/05/13, bavarianradio at comcast.net wrote:
I guess I could chime in here as well. I own many of these fine receivers(only
ones with tubes, Chuck didn't specify tube or SS) This doesn't appear to be a
thread about "favorites" but the quest for the "ultimate" receiver. As
previously stated, It Depends...
I had a visitor about a year ago who worked in Government Ops who used
R-390/390A's and SP-600's to "fingerprint" CW transmitters.
He said that he and many of his compatriots preferred the SP-600's to the R-390
radios but were prohibited to use the 600's for the high speed scope photography
because you couldn't verify the exact frequency. He preferres the audio from the
600's and of course the ease of tuning. One receiver that has been left out
(unless I missed it) is the British Racal RA-17 family of receivers. I have 3 of
them (2-"L" models and a MKII/C3) and it seems to me that bandcruising reached a
new speed with these radios. The only problem as I see it is the preselector
"chasing" that you have to do to keep the front end peaked. It would be nice to
have several tuned RF stages in the front end instead of the cascode single
stage. But the tuning is fast and the radio performs very well. Besides, they
appear in numerous James Bond movies, that has to count for something!!! 73 Ross
W1EKG
----- Original Message -----
Regarding the Rohde @ Schwarz EK07 I have about 8-10 in various
condition which I bought for my friend Hank Arney KN6DI in Texas. He
used to repair and restore these and resold them to the ham community.
Unfortunately Hank broke his hips repeatedly and now lives in a medical
care unit. He can no longer work on these receivers.
I had an arrangement with Hank he got these at what I paid to get them
no profit no handling - rien nada niente. In return he stored and packed
my toys I bought on various lists and eBay USA.
If anybody is interested I am eager to sell these receivers. I have them
in storage for years already hoping that Hank's condition would improve.
I would prefer to sell these receivers in a bundle deal. I do have
pallet size metal shipping boxes ex German army. Shipment via seafreight
is quite cheap. I currently have a last shipment inbound which Hank's
sister arranged. About 8 cubic meters (approx. 300 cubic feed), probably
2-3 tons. As a hint seafreight for this is about $1000. Local transport
to and from port is each more than the seafreight itself.
I can also throw in a few Siemens E311 and Russian 250M if anybody wants
to have these as well. Probably some other German boatanchors
(Telefunken and Siemens 'Rainbow', Lorenz etc.) as well. Let alone a
couple premium receivers Telefunken E1500, E1800/3 and E1800A, also
Rhode @ Schwarz EK47, EK56/4 but this is the wrong forum for that sand
state stuff.
I am not a dealer but a collector with just too many toys and will sell
these at my cost. If somebody lives not too far from a major seaport and
could pick up the shipment I would drive the boxes to Bremerhaven myself
to avoid the expensive local transportation.
vy 73 Heinz DH2FA, KM5VT
Von meinem iPhone gesendet
Am 05.07.2013 um 04:27 schrieb "Kenneth G. Gordon"
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------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2013 14:54:42 -0400
From: "Todd, KA1KAQ" <ka1kaq at gmail.com>
To: Charles Ochs <chuckochs at hotmail.com>
Cc: "hammarlund at mailman.qth.net" <hammarlund at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: Re: [Hammarlund] SP-600 and drift--
Message-ID:
<CANCs6AXb0ZqdaN8KMw2-uhy99Vo1hiCRFLiNcDnnKC0rb29HCw at mail.gmail.com>
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On Fri, Jul 5, 2013 at 11:39 AM, Charles Ochs <chuckochs at hotmail.com> wrote:
> A couple of people have mentioned drift in the SP-600.Let me assure you
> that an SP-600 in proper operation condition has about zero drift. I have a
> late model one with the ceramic capacitors, and when I turn in on each
> night to listen to the chatter on 3.875 it is right where I left it the
> night before. Maybe a very slight tweak to zero beat, and nothing after
> that.My suspicions about those sets that drift are that they are probably
> suffering from capacitor / resistor disease, or from crappy replacement
> capacitors, or maybe the tuning capacitor has a bit too much wear, and
> "wanders" a bit as it is heated, or maybe the local oscillator tube needs
> changing.
>
More often than that it's a much simpler cause: improper tap selected on
the power transformer. I had constant drift with my SP-600 years back until
Prof. Locklear reminded me to check the power transformer taps. Sure
enough, the factory 117v tap was selected and probably worked great 10-20
years earlier. But even then my line voltage was between 117 and 122 or so.
Even when the voltage was measuring 117v, every little surge or drop made
it wander. Moved to the 130v tap and voila - once it warmed up, it stayed
put.
The bigger issue I have with the SP-600 is overall audio quality. Not
horrible, but not worthy of the Super Pro name IMO. All previous SPs back
to the mid-30s used a wonderful P-P audio section that would fill a room
with excellent quality audio through a big Jensen JHP coaxial, or field
coil speaker. The 600 is an entirely different beast, and while it's a
dream to tune, it's pretty anemic in the audio dept in comparison. A true
'communications' receiver.
~ Todd, KA1KAQ/4
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2013 19:54:04 -0400
From: Arthur Delibert <radio75a3 at msn.com>
To: Charles Ochs <chuckochs at hotmail.com>, "hammarlund at mailman.qth.net"
<hammarlund at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: Re: [Hammarlund] SP-600 and drift--
Message-ID: <BLU177-W18CF38CA8D8A450151EA42E47D0 at phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
I had some random up-and-down drift on my SP-600 -- actually, not quite random,
because it followed fluctuations of the local AC voltage supply. Every time one
of our electric heaters came on, the radio would change frequency. I fixed it
by adding a voltage regulator for the heaters. Easily reversible. Plans were
in one of the editions of Fine Tuning's Proceedings about 20+ years ago.
Art Delibert
KB3FJO
> From: chuckochs at hotmail.com
> To: hammarlund at mailman.qth.net
> Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2013 11:39:10 -0400
> Subject: [Hammarlund] SP-600 and drift--
>
> A couple of people have mentioned drift in the SP-600.Let me assure you that
an SP-600 in proper operation condition has about zero drift. I have a late
model one with the ceramic capacitors, and when I turn in on each night to
listen to the chatter on 3.875 it is right where I left it the night before.
Maybe a very slight tweak to zero beat, and nothing after that.My suspicions
about those sets that drift are that they are probably suffering from capacitor
/ resistor disease, or from crappy replacement capacitors, or maybe the tuning
capacitor has a bit too much wear, and "wanders" a bit as it is heated, or maybe
the local oscillator tube needs changing.Given the spread of time and usage of
these receivers, anything is possible. I feel fortunate to have such a nice
radio!Chuck N1LNH
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------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Sat, 06 Jul 2013 00:30:16 -0400
From: "James A. (Andy) Moorer" <jamminpower at earthlink.net>
To: hammarlund at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [Hammarlund] SP-600 and drift--
Message-ID: <51D79D58.7050403 at earthlink.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
The drift is mostly on the upper band, which most folks don't use much.
The next-to-highest band has a bit of drift, but not a lot. The others
are generally pretty stable. Your mileage may vary.
--
James A. (Andy) Moorer
www.jamminpower.com
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Sat, 6 Jul 2013 11:26:46 -0400
From: Charles Ochs <chuckochs at hotmail.com>
To: "hammarlund at mailman.qth.net" <hammarlund at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: [Hammarlund] SP-600 and Drift
Message-ID: <BLU178-W1578AC018BFDD9B6697C0FAE7E0 at phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Of course all these old radios will suffer from changes in AC input voltage to
some extent.The R-390 (dreaded 3TF7)and the HRO-60 (dreaded 4H4-C) included
current regulator "ballast" tubes in an attempt to minimize this problem. The
HRO-50 series did NOT include this feature.
Lately, I have been thinking of installing a "global" AC line regulator to run
all the gear in the shack. A large Sola unit is on the wish list.
Audio quality of the SP-600 is very good, although it lacks the power of the
previous SPs in that it uses a single ended circuit instead of the PP audio. The
earlier versions conformed to the then-standard practice among high-end radio
manufacturers toward "high-fidelity" operation, which assumed operation through
some big honking speaker.I run all of my receivers through simple attenuators to
drop the output to line level, and then into the switching matrix of my audio
console, which feeds the two speakers in the corners of the shack. Works like a
charm, and I get total audio consistency. In this setting, the SP-600 has
outstanding audio. Works great on the R-390 also, and I can still use the front
panel audio level control.Chuck N1LNH
------------------------------
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End of Hammarlund Digest, Vol 114, Issue 10
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