[R-390] Filament runtime meter to replace Vu meter

[Jerry K]

I'm currently rebuilding an old depot dawg that's been rode hard but at 
least not put away wet. It has both meters and they work fine but I'm 
thinking of installing a filament-hours meter in place of the Vu meter 
just for the heck of it, and to have something useful in the hole (I'll 
swap back to the original Vu meter if I sell it someday). I've been 
using R-390A's since 1961 and I've never, not once, ever personally 
looked at the Vu meter to get any useful information (I don't run 
diversity RTTY or whatever else was in Uncle Sam's mind when he 
specified that thing). At least a filament-hours meter might provide 
some useful maintenance info down the road.

Anybody know of a source for small hour meters that will fit this 
application? Seems to me something that would work off rectified 6VAC 
from the filament or front panel light bulb chain would be appropriate, 
so I'm thinking a small LCD or mechanical odometer type 6VDC hour meter 
that will fit the hole would be my uncle here. Have any of you done 
this, and if so where did you find a meter? Probably lots of 12V 
versions around, but 6V might be a little harder to find.

73 Jerry W5KP




Tim Shoppa wrote:
> W9WRL writes:
>   
>> Scott just my thoughts. Why in the heck would you want to do that? I 
>> like to keep my equipment all original, not to mention if you ever 
>> wanted to sell the radio I think a lot of guys would look at that and 
>> figure someone has been screwing around with a nice radio, you might say 
>>     
>
> Well, the VU meter has dubious utility in many "listening while in front
> of the radio" situations.
>
> It's different if the radio is being used in a diversity system or feeding
> received signals to a remote monitoring point.
>
> Maybe one of those 99-cent sticky-backed LCD clocks would satisfy
> both the "don't modify" and "more useful than a VU meter" camps :-)
>
> But like Scott, I seem to recall that for electrically operated front
> panel clocks, a common form factor in military/test equipment clocks
> seems to match the VU meter cutout. I have some run-hour meters
> that fit in the hole, for example.
>
> Tim N3QE
>
>
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