[Premium-Rx] WJ challange for the group

[Robert Close]

I  own a Watkins-Johnson WJ-8718 with several options which recently qualified me to the list.   I would  like to be able to operate the thing again, but I am having problems that I hope the group can help me with.  Information on the WJ product seems to be very hard to dig up on the internet.  I have complete documentation, but it is not the best in that there are several manuals for options (1 Hz option, the computer interface option, etc) that seem to contradict the basic operation outlined in the main manual.  Since there are about 6" stack of pages to read, I want to ask the group a question to get me going in the right direction.

The receiver sat dormant for quite some time-maybe 10 years, before I got hold of it.  It worked fine for a short while, then started to operate intermittently.  I took each card out to look for obvious problems, and found the back-up battery had leaked, causing corrosion on the board.  I removed the battery, and sprayed and brushed off the corrosion carefully (I thought), and reinstalled and powered up.(no battery has been installed yet)   Now the receiver seems to initiate it's self-diagnosis routine and gets stuck in that loop, causing the display and all switch lights to pulsate.  I have checked carefully for any junk that might have bridged a terminal on an IC socket, and  have removed , cleaned and reinstalled every IC.  The voltages seem to be reasonable at the places I checked.

I am guessing that the EPROM's might have been exposed to light at the time they were stored-the paper covering the windows had curled back.  I am looking for either the code to have a couple of chips burned for me, or a couple burned by someone that has access to the code and chips.

Any help in getting this fine receiver up and running would be appreciated. As an aside, I got this from WCCC on Cape Cod when it shut down and they scrapped everything.  My brother worked there for several years doing antenna maintenance,  through the time they decommissioned the station.  RCA>MCI>JNK.  Oh well.

Bob Close, N1FQQ



rclose at nhwisp.com
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