[Milsurplus] RAK-7 caps - Bill's latest radio adventure

[Richard]

I have two RAL's and an RAK, and the biggest problem was badly aged 
resistors, up to 11 times rated resistance to even non-conducting. 
Fortunately they are mostly easily accessible.  The oil and paper 
condensers are "probably" OK.  (I haven't needed to replace any yet.)  
If used as a grid coupling capacitor I would replace it, otherwise go 
slow.  Hint: Check the resistors first...

Richard, AA1P

On 08/24/2015 09:33 AM, Bill Cromwell wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Somewhere over the years I acquired some bad info about the caps in 
> the RAK/RAL radios. I have a RAK-7. I have the BAMA manual for a 
> RAK-5. It was my understanding that the RAK/RAL used no paper caps and 
> the caps should never be a problem. Wrong! I took a closer look at the 
> manual because the performance of my RAK has deteriorated so badly. 
> There are 29 paper and oil caps in the beast and it's power supply. 
> They are around about 60 to 70 years old!!! I'm just happy I didn't 
> let the smoke out!
>
> Maintenance and TLC start with replacing those caps and checking all 
> the mica caps. That will be followed by checking all of the resistors 
> for out-of-spec. I have to order the needed caps because I don't have 
> enough in the drawer to replace them all. I have been wasting my 
> limited supply in some command receivers (not enough to complete all 
> of those, either). Quick...buy stock in Mouser, Digi-Key, etc! <evil 
> grin>
>
> 73,
>
> Bill  KU8H