One thing of several i was not thrilled about with the R-808: the 2:1 freq band ranges. 2 - 4, 4 - 8, 8 - 16, 16 to yes, 32 MHz. The SRR-13 has the top bands 16 - 24, 24 - 32. The R-392 has ~ kHz readout 0.5 to 32 MHz. The R-808 makes me think,
"old school". Like Hammarlund old school, when Hammarlund HQ -180 two dialer was selling at the same time, same store as the Drake SPR-4.
If there's shortcuts on the R-808 to aligning it without extension cables, i'm all ears. I also thought about jiggering the B+ to get a couple more volts on the RF and IF plates. I also thought about removing the useless RYTY converter section.
Would that be advantageous or just dumb ? Probably what i really should do is remove the R-808 from my life.
Re big receivers, story #1436: I bought this big rec. that had come off an Italian WW2 navy cruiser. This was the story Art Corbus was told by H-- L-- who was the ARRL section manager who sold it to him. So i bought it from Art, not his kind
of thing. A 2&1/2 man lift on a wheeled table. I determined in not too long a time that the tubes were all postwar. When i told Art, he said, "That lying son of a ....". I could not get a schematic for it and the size and weight were a killer. I ended up
just junking it. I later found an old CQ mag with a pix of the thing in someone's shack; a Siemens receiver. So it was one huge mistake for me to acquire. Not the worst mistake of my life, but a mistake.
I still have a German KWEa rec which tunes only 1 to 10 MHz but weighs a ton. It is highly rated as a CW rec by that Norwegian fellow who does the Youtube videos, but it may have to go. I draw the line at about 65 lbs. Below that, i don't have
to worry about doing damage to myself, and i don't have to dread moving the thing.
-Hue Miller
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