I am of the same opinion as Glenn, they are fine receivers. I have worked on several of the FRR-23 and SRR-13 general coverage versions. I have perhaps been lucky in that I have never replaced a bad subminiature tube nor found a bad lever arm. I have found several bad coils in the antenna and RF modules. It seems that these coils do not tolerate high power RF!

I attended the auction of Dr. James Blackmon, K5VZ (SK) radio holdings back in October, 2012. It was a fast moving auction with about 450 lots. I bought perhaps a dozen of the FRR / SRR receivers. Most were in a decent physical state, a few had been through a fire and had smoke or heat damage and other fire related residue. The examples with the most damage were scrapped and the hardware and modules saved. It is not obvious but the SRR and FRR receivers although similar, are not identical. The Antenna and RF modules are completely different. It appears that all of the other modules are interchangeable but I am not 100% certain about this.

The biggest problem in restoration was replacing the tank coils in the antenna and RF modules. Instead of rewinding the coils, I just replaced them with similar coils form the second module in the lineup. I did not find any bad or weak subminiature tubes. Perhaps they are the most reliable tubes ever mass produced? In all of the KWT-6 and FRR/SRR modules repaired, I have only found one bad subminiature tube. It was in a KWT-6 TGC module. It was easy to find since it had an open heater. It seems that in the KWT-6, the mechanical filters are the biggest problem, not the subminiature tubes.

Walt Hutchens, KJ4KV (SK?) wrote an article back in 1991 on these receives. His experiences are vastly different then mine. I feel that the receiver he repaired must have been either dropped or badly damaged by the dreaded previous owner since he even ventured into the solder sealed main tuning capacitor!

Jim

Logic: Method used to arrive at the wrong conclusion, with confidence. Murphy

On Monday, June 2, 2025 at 10:00:21 AM CDT, Glenn Little WB4UIV <[email protected]> wrote:

The SRR-13 is a descent receiver.
It is modular with pencil tubes in sub modules.
Without the extender cable you can work on the radio by removing the
back panel.
Draw backs are the projection screen and the band change lever arms do
break.
The service manual is very complete, including coil winding data.

73
Glenn
WB4UIV

On 6/1/2025 7:28 PM, Hubert Miller wrote:
> I have a bunch of old classic receivers, all need some restoration. I
> would appreciate your opinion on:
>
> How difficult to work on, restore ?
>
> Fun of operating ?
>
> Note that i am NOT asking about how wonderful the selectivity, stability
> and so on, is. If i needed the state of art specs, i would acquire a
> machine capable of doing that.
>
> These are hobby type radios. I am not going to keep all of the radios
> named below.
>
> SRR-13 I REALLY like the visual freq display ( that i have seen on
> videos )
>
> ARR-41
>
> SX-117 Hallicrafters
>
> SX- 146 Hallicrafters
>
> Also, i have some HROs: RAS, couple HRO-5s, a German KST and a Japanse
> Chi Ichi. I do not like the plug in coils that are stored separately.
> The only exception i might make is, i have a USCG R-460.
>
> Is this an HRO-50 or the improved selectivity HRO-50-1 ?
>
> I tend to like it, ‘cuz “real radios have handles on front” . Honestly,
> that attracts me more than do a couple of the rarer HRO models named above.
>
> Your opinion is valued.
>
> -Hue Miller
>
>
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--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Glenn Little ARRL Technical Specialist QCWA LM 28417
Amateur Callsign: WB4UIV [email protected] AMSAT LM 2178
QTH: Goose Creek, SC USA (EM92xx) USSVI, FRA, NRA-LM ARRL TAPR
"It is not the class of license that the Amateur holds but the class
of the Amateur that holds the license"

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