[Johnson] Valiant to give away plus cash

[w7fe]

Hey John,

"Been there done that" on two Rangers and a Pacemaker. My Valiant is still 
OK, but I imagine that it will eventually develop the same problem. Those 
thin insulators in the VFO flex coupling are VERY fragile and probably have 
become more so with age, heat, etc.

Actually, I confess that I broke the first one by being a bit too ham-handed 
(pun intended?) when removing the front panel.  Mine failed to the point 
that the insulator basically turned to dust. I fixed that one by making a 
new insulator out of .016 PCB material.  What a pain...drill out rivets, 
find new tiny little screws, tap the holes, yada yada yada.. The PCB 
material turned out to be a little stiff to handle the slight misalignment, 
so the VFO knob on that Ranger is now a little harder to turn than others. 
Maybe a thin plastic like from a gallon milk jug wall would have worked 
better.

Anyway, on the second Ranger, the coupling was broken when I got it. This 
time, I decided to try to find a replacement coupling with a small enough 
overall diameter to fit.  And, of course, the original coupling is freaking 
"special" in that one end is for the 1/4" dia. drive shaft and the other end 
is for the 3/16" dia VFO cap. shaft.  I finally found a suitable small 
enough coupling on ebay but it was for 1/4" dia. shafts on each end.   No 
big deal-- I just made a little bushing with some 1/4" heavy wall brass 
tubing from Ace Hardware.  The I.D. allowed a nice slip fit over the VFO 
shaft,  so I put a few drops of super glue on the shaft  and slipped the 
bushing over it.  Works great, and that bushing will never come off.  I 
bought two couplings, and wound up using the other one on the Pacemaker 
using the same method. (I was very careful when removing its front panel and 
I saved the coupling, but I broke it at reassembly...lots of blue stuck to 
the ceiling in my shack when that happened, too..)

But ain't this old crap great?!!  I mean, what would we do if this Johnson 
stuff worked perfectly after only about 50 years on earth?  We'd probably 
just pay attention to the XYL once in a while, have some interesting QSO's, 
work a little DX (very little these days), watch football on 
TV...........what fun would that be?

73 de Stu  W7FE
Phoenix

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Lawson" <jpl15 at panix.com>
To: <johnson at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2005 11:35 PM
Subject: [Johnson] Valiant to give away plus cash


>  My question is - what's the easiest and least 
> invasive/alignment-disturbing way to remedy this lovely situation - or is 
> it "front panel off, disassemble VFO, tighten one set-screw 1/8 turn, 
> reassemble VFO, reassemble front panel, completely re-align -
>
>
>
>   Did I mention I am currently experiencing Hostile Feelings towards heavy 
> old expensive electronic stuff??
>
>
>   Cheerz  (and %*^&%#$!!!!!!)
>
> John KB6SCO