[Johnson] Will be restoring a Johnson Ranger

[whitebear1122 at comcast.net]

Yes the R13 problem is the in both the Valiant and the Ranger.  It is a
catastrophic failure, at least for me.  When the resistor burned up, it went
low in resistance and took out the 6AU6 VFO tube, and OA2 along with it.  In
my old Valiant I did replace the 18K 2 watt resistor with 18K 5W, and also
moved it out of the VFO compartment.  While the higher power resistor is
definitely needed, moving the resistor out of the vfo compartment was up for
debate...  if I recall, at the time about half the guys said to move it and
half said to leave it.. hi hi 

When I restored my Ranger a couple years ago replaced the 18K resistor and
just left it in the VFO compartment.  NO complaints from either the Ranger
nor me..

73 Scott WA9WFA

-----Original Message-----
From: johnson-bounces at mailman.qth.net <johnson-bounces at mailman.qth.net> On
Behalf Of Roy Morgan
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2022 1:00 PM
To: donhellen at roadrunner.com
Cc: johnson at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [Johnson] Will be restoring a Johnson Ranger

Valiant problem in the Ranger too?

Some Valiants had instability on 40 meters.  I do not know if this happens
in the Ranger too.  The cause was RF getting into the VFO via the front of
the VFO housing.
The Cure was a to add conductive wipers bearing on the VFO shaft where it
enters the housing, or flexible braid grounding from the shaft to the
housing.

Many Valiant owners (and Ranger owners too?) moved the VR tube dropping
resistor to outside the VFO housing to minimize heat in there and resulting
drift. (Another poster mentioned that the original part is under sized, thus
leading to failure.)

Roy