[Johnson] Johnson Ranger 1 update ...

[Adrian Ellison]

Hi all, 

Just to say thanks to all in the group for the kind advice and assistance.  My 
Ranger is now working and in daily use for the past 2 weeks after replacing 
the VFO micas and moving R3 out of the box.  R4 was also cracked right 
through, came out in two pieces.  I had a bit of trouble with V3 self 
oscillating even on key down, which was resolved by replacing the decoupling 
capacitors and R7, well, at least it's been fine since I did that.  I also 
constructed a 300v series regulator to the VFO supply as the mains voltage 
here jumps about all over the place, helped quite a bit.  I use the tx for 
cw, and only other trouble I had is that, on 40m the VFO pulls quite a bit, 
500-600 hz on key down resulting in a spectacularly ugly chirp, and for this 
I adjusted the mechanical linkage from the band switch to the VFO tank switch 
so that the 1.75-2mhz tank is used for 40m as well as 160/80m and that fixed 
it up nicely, nobody believed it was the same rig, clean as a whistle.  
There's just enough drive to do this, has anybody else done this mod?
  
I've no idea if the modulator works, might have a look at it one day, but just 
for now the modulator tubes are filed away in a box marked "rainy day" :-) 

I'm running my station on a very low budget here and so expect to be using 
this set-up for quite a long time, I've enough spare tubes to last a 
lifetime, and was thinking that perhaps a useful thing to do next will be to 
convert the XT1 position to EXT VFO and construct a modern stable VFO, 
heterodyne type or perhaps DDS, could fabricate a plug and connect it via the 
crystal appeture .... hmmmm

Anyway, thanks again for your kind assistance, after my initial dismay this 
really has turned out to be a very useful tx ....

Adrian
ZS1TTZ