[Milsurplus] RBS 2 Receiver Qustions

[w8au at sssnet.com]

At 05:58 PM 3/18/2011, howard holden wrote:
>The RBS series uses mostly metal octal tubes, nothing too hard to 
>find. It tunes 2 - 16 Mhz or so (I think, as I recall), 4 bands. Not 
>real slow on the tuning so it's more for general coverage but it can 
>do for comm work if you are patient. Good sensitivity and stability. 
>Worked with two of them aboard the USS Ling SS-297. Major problem is 
>with the trimmer caps in the RF, osc, and converter sections. They 
>have weak springs and over time tend to short out. Fortunately, the 
>boxes with the caps for those sections come out fairly easily for 
>replacing or reworking the caps. The job looks like major brain 
>surgery but it's not. Power supply is separate. These are not lightweights.

To add a minor point to Howie's comprehensive overview, the upper 
freq limit is 20 MHz.  He's definitely right
on the APC trimmer caps.  The rotor shaft sometimes slips when the 
compression fitting loses its grip and the
rotors short out against the stators.  The trimmers can be fixed, but 
it's annoying when one has to repeat this
repair a few times on the same receiver.

It's a nice package, though. I call it the "poor mans RBC,"  :-)

Perry