[Johnson] more Ranger adventures - done for now

Jim jbrannig at verizon.net
Mon Aug 8 08:40:47 EDT 2011


Bill,
My Ranger arrived well used, with a few "interesting" modifications.

I took it apart, cleaned it with Simple Green and a garden hose and 
proceeded to replace almost all the capacitors and many out of spec. 
resistors.

Then Paint, De-Oxit, grease etc.......
Tracing the circuit through the "OPERATE" switch was a challenge.

I found the information from AD5X to be very helpful 
http://www.ad5x.com/images/Articles/Ranger%20Mods%20RevB.pdf
and http://www.ad5x.com/images/Articles/FrontPanelRemoval.pdf

BAMA has the very useful construction manual on file.

My Ranger puts out full power, sounds good on AM, doesn't drift (much) after 
warm up and has no detectable chirp on CW.

Jim





> Hi,
>
> So I got the Ranger looking pretty vulnerable on the bench. That extra
> cap that was tacked in there wasn't even tacked in very well. I removed
> it. Nasty! Most of the screws and nuts were loose to one extent or
> another. A few wires fell apart as soon as I touched them! Ugly! Some
> difficult to see/reach bandswitch sections were pretty well messed up.
> With the radio half torn down I was able to clean them up. A couple of
> other switch sections weren't too bad but I got into those anyway. There
> are still three or four screws missing that I'll buy replacements
> tomorrow. I already had replacement parts for some of them.
>
> I put the radio back together again and it works pretty close to the way
> it probably did in the 50s and 60s. There is a little bit of chirp and a
> small amount of drift on 40 and 20 - worse on 15. I only let it warm up
> five minutes before I calibrated the VFO and tried it out. After I
> finished checking it out I turned my receiver to real on the air signals
> on 40 meters. The first QSO I heard was from a Collins transmitter that
> was chirping and drifting on 40 worse than my Ranger! Even so..the
> "character" didn't sound too bad and the other ham gave that guy a good
> report. The Ranger has that "sequenced" keying so the little chirp I'm
> hearing in my receiver a few feet away may not even be going on the air.
>
> I'm going to order up some caps and resistors and screws and wires and
> tubes and crystals and stuff but meanwhile I'm going to whiz up the
> interface/glue to hook the Ranger up with my pretty receiver and get it
> on the air. I had a chance today to see how to take it apart and put it
> back together so it will be easier when all the parts get here. Some of
> the dirty parts - knobs and such - cleaned up pretty nice while they
> were off. Maybe later I'll put together an external VFO to bring the
> performance into the 21st century. But I noticed how easy it was to pick
> out that Collins this evening <evil grin>.
>
> I'm having fun working on this Ranger and I'm posting results as I go
> along in hopes of helping somebody else when they run their search
> engine. It's good to compare notes with other people who have been
> there, too.
>
> 73,
>
> Bill  KU8H
>
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