[Johnson] Re: Johnson Digest, Vol 52, Issue 8

[Robert Nickels]

John Lyles wrote:
> Chuck
> I had the same problem, except I picked up a 500 RF unit without even the PS chassis. 
You guys will hate me for telling this story - but a number of years ago 
I bought a Johnson 500 RF deck at a public auction where there were 
dozens of hams and radio guys present, for only $65 because the 
prevailing wisdom was that it wasn't worth much without the power 
supply/modulator.   Even back then, I thought this was an incredible 
deal, and that I could roll up my sleeves and build a copy of the 
missing unit.   Since the OT who owned it had been a broadcast engineer 
and had tons (literally) of old transformers up for sale, I decided I'd 
better bid on some components that looked like they could be usable.   I 
bought a couple of big old dirty chassis with some HV parts present, and 
one with parts missing and obvious hacked-up repairs, but for $2 I 
figured the parts could be usable.   

You guessed it, one of the big old chassis turned out to be the Johnson 
500 p/s-mod deck, heavily modified and missing the top cover, which 
evidently was why no one, including myself, recognized it at the 
time!    Perhaps the iron used by Johnson was prone to failure, or maybe 
this guy just decided to modify it for his own reasons, but either way I 
got a bargain!

73, Bob W9RAN