[Milsurplus] [Glowbugs] Opening HC-6 cans ?

[Glen Zook]

Almost all HC6/U holders are soldered together.  There is a similar holder, with a different nomenclature, that is welded.  


I salvage HC6/U holders all the time to use for the Johnson antenna relay connectors that I sell.  With the soldered holders, grasping the pins with a pair of needle nosed pliers and using a propane torch, it takes less than 5-seconds to loosen the top from the base.  This process does not harm the crystal element.  To reassemble, file, use an X-acto knife, etc., to remove the old solder and then a 30-watt to 40-watt soldering iron works well to get things back together.


However, it is VERY difficult to move the frequency very far.  Rubbing solder onto the plating can lower the frequency a very few Hertz.  Using an eraser on the plating can raise the frequency a very few Hertz.  But, it doesn't take all that much before the crystal stops working.  Working on the quartz requires etching solutions, plating equipment, etc.


HC6/U crystals have been used in the two-way radio arena for about 70-years and I have been working with such since 1965.  Changing frequency a very small amount is relatively easy to do.  But, going very far is VERY difficult!


Glen, K9STH 
Website: https://k9sth.net 

    On Friday, September 20, 2019, 11:21:26 AM CDT, Hubert Miller <kargo_cult at msn.com> wrote:  
 
  I found, or i should say rediscovered, a bunch of HC-6 rocks that i removed from a 1950s Collins VHF air transmitter i scrapped some years back. This set apparently used a crystal mixing scheme to generate the VHF  channels. There's abt 20 right in the 80m voice band but they all end on odd numbers like 3833.3 kHz. I would like to harvest the blanks and mebbe grind them to more popular defined channels like 3885. I recall in the past my attempts to open the soldered ones using a 100 watt iron didn't work. Maybe cutting them open? Some are not soldered anyway. What use: jeweler's blade coping saw? Dremel ? What think you ?
  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/milsurplus/attachments/20190920/e12859ee/attachment-0001.html>