[Premium-Rx] Collins HF-2050 - stiff tuning

[michaelob666 at ntlworld.com]

Dear Chris

Your problem of stiff tuning on the Collins HF-2050 caused what passes for a 
brain here to zing into overdrive because I vaguely recalled a review of 
this receiver by John Wilson in Short Wave Magazine years back in which he 
mentioned this problem.

I have now extracted it from the archive - and yes it's in SWM for March 
2000 starting at page 23.  It is highly detailed and is good reading for 
users and potential buyers.

He was not at all impressed with the tuning ergonomics and found the tuning 
knob stiff and awkward.  The relevant passage is as follows:

QUOTE "The kindest thing I can say is that it's clumsy to use, but I do 
appreciate that this receiver was probably meant to sit happily in a rack 
listening to a single frequency for years on end, so I am not being fair in 
my irritation.

"The fact that the HF-2050 is not intended for "tuning around" is made clear 
when you try to do just that.  The main tuning knob is smaller than usual 
and quite stiff in its action.  Despite a "dimple" in the tuning knob for a 
probing finger to investigate, it is simply not possible to tune this way 
and you have to use a hefty full-blooded wrist action to get the knob 
tuning.  The tuning rate is selected by - guess what? - tuning down the tune 
column, and the available frequency steps are 10Hz which is fine for slow 
tuning around a CW signal; 100Hz which is equally satisfactory, but then 
leaps to 10kHz steps which is too fast for tuning even AM stations.  The 
intermediate 1kHz step seems to have been forgotten.  Strange feature!  Did 
I really see a Collins name plate on this receiver?" UNQUOTE

Bear in mind guys that John (who I know well] is used to and is a great fan 
of the featherlight super smooth flywheel tuning that we find on this side 
of the water and that we take for granted thanks to sets such as the Racal 
RA1772 and 3701 and the many Eddystones.

He does, however, praise the stability, the phase noise performance of the 
synthesiser, the strong signal handling, dynamic range and the excellent 
recovered audio.  He comments on the audio: QUOTE "This was Collins audio at 
its best, and whatever algorithms were being used in the DSP performed 
superbly." UNQUOTE.

So, guys returning to the stiffness problem, I suspect that all the reams of 
wisdom displayed recently on lubricants, all of which were both very 
interesting and useful for me, may possibly be wasted on this receiver in 
the absence of any stiffness caused by rust etc.

73s
Michael
G8MOB



-----Original Message----- 
From: Chris fuller
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2014 2:12 AM
To: Premium-Rx at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Premium-Rx] Collins HF-2050

hi,
     i have a collins hf-2050 that i bought awhile back but never really
used and just dug it out and started to use it again and noticed that the
tuning seems a bit stiff with the tuning knob.i was wondering of thos is a
common  problem with the receiver such as the heat issues and if theres
anything i can do to rectify the problem.thanks to anyone that can provide
some answers.regards,
                                                             chris
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