[Milsurplus] WWII Navy RAL-8 Receiver Project

[mike christie]

Good Morning

I've tried a couple times to reply to Dave's post on the RAL 8 so I hope
this goes through this time. 

I've enjoyed reading all the comments to Dave's project and the most recent
one from Ken.  I have an RAL 8 Serial number 101,which I restored although
it was working when I got it.  The front plate and case needws some paint
restoral which I did by removing the front plate and lightly sanded it and
the case along with the power supply plate and case. I primed all the pieces
and spray painted them with black wrinkle paint I found at Lowes. All the
pieces came out pretty well and the best part was when I got it back
together and the receiver came alive!   I did have two problems with the
receiver which were the headphone jack with intermitting audio and
microphonics when tapping the chassis.  Opening the box that houses the
audio jack and in doing so a screw fell out. A closer inspecting revealed
the screw came from the jack its self.  I removed the jack and found the
second screw was also broken and separators fell out. I was able to remove
one screw and had to drill out the second screw. I put it all back together
and added washers and nuts to the assembly.  I think what happened over time
the jack broke because of use.  I narrowed down the microphonics to the
audio transformer also moving one of the wires on terminal strip caused some
intermit audio so I re-soldered both wires from the transformer.  This seem
to fix the microphonics and the wires seem to be good now.

I wanted to ask Ken what he used for replacement capacitors, were they the
original type or the more modern type? I'm trying to keep mine original by
using original parts but I'm not so hard over if I can't find the original.
This receiver has a special meaning to me as I had one when I was kid. A Ham
(now deceased) loaned me an RAL so I could learn code to get my Ticket. I
returned the Receiver after learning the code and borrow it again years
later after returning home from Vietnam to practice to get my General
ticket.  I was given the receiver and it rests in my childhood home to this
day. Due to some family differences I'm not able to retrieve it so I got one
from Fair radio with the help from Phil from Fair Radio and Robert Downs.

I am looking for a knob with the metal pointer to replace one that I could
not remove one of the set screws. The other part is the audio transformer
just inside the audio jack box. I would also like to do the mods that Ken
did to his RAL to improve the audio response if I can find some original
caps.

Thanks 

Mike

W1ZFB

       

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/milsurplus/attachments/20190707/76b5dbf8/attachment.html>