[Johnson] Ranger adventures live on

[Bill Cromwell]

On Wed, 2012-07-18 at 18:14 -0400, Jim wrote:
> I changed ALL the capacitors and a few resistors in the VFO box.
> That took care of most of the problems, but it IS going to drift.
> 
> Jim
> 

Hi Jim,

Even the 160 and 80 meter bands drift a little as I noted. I had been
thinking maybe the 40 meter drift was considered tolerable "back in the
day". No way. If I leave it on for a week it'll be up in the two meter
band somewhere! The way it is now on 80 meters it will stay in
somebody's 250 Hz CW filter. On 40 meters it might right out of the band
and will certainly be lost to most ham receivers as well as moving on
top of other QSOs! I'm sure one of those antique caps is dying. Even
atomic clocks drift. It's just a matter of how much is tolerable <grin>.

I'll operate it as much as I can - 160 and 80 for sure - until I can
tear it down to get access to the VFO parts. I went in there once
before. I would rather not. Like you, I'll change out all of those old
parts (except the air variables) AND this time I'll rig it to operate
with no load for testing before I put all that stuff back together (if I
can).