[Johnson] ranger problems

[Roy Morgan]

At 08:40 AM 1/30/02 -0500, stevem wrote:
>>my ranger has a weird little problem  ... when you unkey, the oscillator 
>>continues to run,


This is a well documented problem.
Find the archives for the list and see what you can find.

Here are two links (not recently tested by me) to look at:

http://www.w3am.com/ranger.html
http://www.thebizlink.com/am/tech/htm/rangtron.htm

Also, from my notes here are posts about your problem:

>Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 22:13:35 -0800
>From: catman351@digitalputty.com
>To: johnson@qth.net
>Subject: [Johnson] Ranger cap changes
>
>For those of you with unmodified/uncapped Rangers, I really suggest you
>change your caps now. I had problems with hum and control issues. I
>still have 60 cycles on my audio but after doing some parallel cap
>tests, I found that I need new caps. Secondly, a few of those bloated
>old Aerovox wax .1 caps still reside in my Ranger 1. I was having some
>problems during the standby mode while doing 3870 kc (West Coast AM
>group). I would get this terrible hash and 60 cycle noise during the
>unkey part of my transmission back into the receiver. I changed two of
>these wax paper caps and the problem went away. Tomorrow, I'll do a
>wholesale changeout of as many of these guys as I possibly can. Vitamin
>Q's, TRW plastics, and Orange Drops will probably find their way into my
>Yeoman duty Ranger. Already, I have done a similar changeout in my
>Eddystone 840A. Good luck and hope to hear you folks on the air.
>
>73 de Cal, N6KYR.
>
>Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 14:03:25 -0800
>To: johnson@qth.net, WA6HDYBD@aol.com
>Subject: [Johnson] Cap change update
>Reply-To: catman351@digitalputty.com
>
>All:
>I may have misled you on my cap change update. Although doing just that
>is beneficial to the Ranger (and other assorted EFJ rigs), I did do one
>procedure that totally stopped VFO feedback into the receiver: I
>adjusted R39 until there was no noise at all during the key up phase of
>the Ranger.
>
>I did end up changing out the low voltage cap C78 to a high value 100 uF
>450VDC NTE electrolytic cap and that eliminated the hum completely from
>my transmit audio. Now I do know that the cap changeout is about 3 times
>as much capacitance as the original 30 uF but so far, no problems were
>noted. I'll be going on the West Coast AM net tonight and test the "new"
>Ranger's mettle against some of the broadcast KW's (and will probably
>lose) but no matter: she has lots of clean audio output and I noted that
>my power went up about 10 more watts in the process. Definitel progress!
>
>Cal, N6KYR,

- Roy Morgan, K1LKY since 1959 - Keep 'em Glowing!
7130 Panorama Drive, Derwood MD 20855
Home: 301-330-8828 Work: Voice: 301-975-3254,  Fax: 301-948-6213
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