[Johnson] Johnson Ranger School

[john page]

     Well boys and girls. Its been an interesting week and a half. I 
attended an imprompto Ranger school in my own basement and hosted by myself.
     It all started when i contacted someone on the net about an ad they ran 
for a Ranger for sale. It didnt look to good but having never had one and 
liking a challange, I went for it. It arrived and was in very good physical 
shape. Does need a paint job.
     Electrical was quite another story. It, of course, didnt work. I spent, 
as mentioned earlier, a week and a half of 10 hour days and now it works 
perfectly. Yes I am retired and have, obviously, way to much time on my 
hands. Should have known better but it was a challange and look what I 
learned. Two weeks ago I couldnt even spell "Rnager" and now I know all I 
think I want to about them.
     All kidding aside, it was fun and really did learn alot about it. Cant 
believe what people have done to this transmitter over its lifetime.
     It had: missing parts
             wrong value parts
             bad parts
             misswired parts
             wires going places they had no business going
             shorted wires
             shorted switch contacts (by nearby wiring)
             and just plain crappy soldering
     So far I have documented 57 different problems. Its as if someone just 
got in there and said "oh boy, wonder if it will work better if I hook this 
here thang to that there watchamacallit. OOPS
     On of the last thigs I found was the feed back loop in the mod section 
was hooked up backwords. Horrible audio. It really looked like this was an 
original hookup as its soldering looked undisturbed compared to what some of 
the other stuff looked like. May the guy who built it couldnt get it work on 
phone and just ran cw???????
     Well, it works now and looking forward to getting it on the air with my 
NC173.
     Just wanted to share my experince with all on the list. Guess i was 
just a little proud that I made it live again too.  John K4KWM





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