[Johnson] New guy!

[Freeberg, Scott (STP)]

Welcome aboard.  FB on the Ranger.  The Ranger is a great transmitter in my opinion, and a classic too.  I have 2 Ranger 1's, and 2 Ranger II's.  If anyone is looking a nice Ranger II or an incredibly nice Ranger II, contact me.

Parts sources are the same as for the other stuff:  Ebay, BA Lists for parts or parts units, begging, etc... :)

Figure out if you want to leave the SS device in or restore to tube rectifiers.  Like everything else, opinions will vary.  Either will be fine.

Yes VFO runs warm but it has always done that.  There's an 18K 2 Watt resistor, R3 I think, that is a current limiter to the VFO OA2 tube.  You need (yes need) to replace the original with the same value but a 4 or 5 watt part.  It is the only weak link that I know of in the Ranger.  The part is underrated powerwise and has been burning up since it was built :)  When mine went, it took out the 6AU6 vfo tube, OA2, and low voltage rectifier tube.  Lucky it didn't take out the transformer.  When I removed the resistor, it was measuring 150 ohms on the meter and was cracked and ruptured.   Some folks recommend moving the resistor out of the VFO cabinet and placing it under the chassis (there is a grommet in the VFO compartment where you can simply run the wires down to the bottomside of the chassis).  Others recommend leaving the resistor in the VFO cabinet.  One listmember collected some frequency stability data that suggests the VFO is more stable with the resistor in the VFO cabinet.  I think either option will be fine :)  

Frankly the best place to see picture of what its supposed to look like is the manual.  Get an orginal manual because the photo's are the most crisp.  The manual has good crisp photo's because folks were using it to build the Ranger with so they needed to see where the part went too.  While there are some great reproduction manuals out there, I haven't seen anything as good as the glossy photo's in the manual.

Have fun with your Ranger.
73, SCott WA9WFA