[NJARC] SX-16 Repairs

[carolew]

Jim, it's a horror show. I saw the SX-16 on one of those ham swap sites.
I've bought stuff on these sites before without a problem. I usually
exchange e-mails with the seller to get a feel for him. If I'm convinced
that he's a real "radio guy" and not a quick-buck artist, I will trust
him. Real "radio guys" will usually not burn you.

Here are the issues:

1. In his e-mails, the seller told me it works "well" and "good." When
it arrived, it didn't work at all. The audio works and I can get a 456
kHz signal through the grid of the mixer but lose the signal before
that. That suggests problems in the rf section. I buy only working
radios because I know my technical limitations. I can recap and restore
a set but am a lousy diagnostician. The radio arrived intact and
undamaged. I fail to see how shipping could cause a problem in the rf
section.

2. The seller told me it was "all original." He said that at most,
"some" of the paper caps "may" have been replaced. The reality was that
all but one had been replaced, mostly with recent vintage orange drops.
Since I love to restore and recap boat anchors, I would never have
bought a set that had already been recapped. Interestingly, when the
seller e-mailed me pictures of the set, his pictures showed the front
and top of the set. No picture of the underside of the chassis. I would,
of course, have immediately noticed the orange drops if he had sent me a
photo of the underside.

3. There were a lot of signs pointing to a recently botched attempt at
restoration. I already mentioned the orange drops. The power cord was
polarized. One tube (a 6K7) had the grid cap soldered to the top of the
tube. Another (a 6J7) was shoved into the socket with a broken base. The
antenna terminal was floating inside the chassis. There was nothing to
hold it to the hole in the chassis where it should set.

I'm going to have to eat this one. The seller is willing to return the
purchase price ($135) if I ship the radio back to him. The shipping
cost, combined with my initial cost to ship it to me, totals $80. That
means that my loss would be $80. That also assumes that the seller would
return the purchase price to me once he got the radio back. I suspect
that once he got it, he would claim that I (or the shipper) broke the
radio. He would then refuse a refund and tell me he would ship it back
to me if I pay him another $40 for shipping. In that case, I would be
out $215 and he would have the radio.


Joe Connor