[R-390] R-390 alignment attempt #1, need advice - Crystal Deck

[rbethman]

Folks,

Just cleaning and ensuring that the trimmers work, is just the tip of 
the iceberg!

One would be wise to begin examination of the crystals themselves.

Bad or cold solder joint?  They can work for more years than you can 
imagine, then next thing you know, the problem as described bites.

The wiring to the switch is just as likely to be an issue.

I've run across some of the darnedest things when I go of hunting for 
something that has gone awry.

It never ceases to amaze me what you find the real cause is.

I went into a fuse box on a Lincoln Marquis that one of my wife's 
friends was having an issue getting power to her GPS when she'd plug it 
into the lighter socket.

All I did was to pull the fuse, check it real quick with one of those 
Harbor Freight DMMs, and the fuse was just fine.

Poke the fuse back into its slot, and everything lit up, such as 
courtesy lights, and the lighter socket.

Probably just crud, as it is a '97 model.  How much resistance does it 
take to stop 12VDC?  Especially when that fuse very likely hasn't been 
pulled and plugged back in until I did that evening.

Simple things will cause all of us to go bald by pulling our hair out, 
and it was something that was so simple that it makes you want to either 
cry or laugh like all get out!

I went through one of those drills around '75.  Now I was "supposed" to 
be the mechanical technician.  The electrical technician had "checked" 
one piddling 2A fuse in a 120VAC circuit.

I chased the entire circuit from "just" after the fuse, all the way 
through 75ft of cable, and started doing mechanical checks on the 
governor drive motor assembly.  Not a single thing showed up.

So after about 7 hours of chasing my tail, I stood right next to him and 
had him pull and check the fuse as I stood there.

The look on his face was priceless!  The fuse WAS bad the entire time!  
I and another member, had that blown fuse attached to a necklace, and we 
presented it to him.  We had a habit of doing things like that.  We went 
so far as to make a plaque with a globe valve on it for one guy that 
kept tripping over it in a power plant.

Anyway, popped in a new fuse and the whole system came right up and sang 
like a wonderful songbird!

Bob - N0DGN



On 8/3/2014 6:04 PM, Doug Massey wrote:
> Hey frank
> You may need to pull the whole Crystal deck out. Which is probably not what you wanted to do.  Take all the trimmers apart clean them and put them back together.  Could be those trimmers are just stuck. It is a common problem with those things.  While you're in there you want to clean all those wafers as you pointed out with deoxit.  Sometimes the same thing happens adjusting any of the ceramic trimmers in the radio.  If you have that assembly apart make sure you check all of them before you put it back together.  Overlooking those trimmers while module is out of the radio can sometimes come back to bite you when you do the alignment especially Crystal deck and RF deck
> Good luck with it.  I am sure you will get it going.  This is a great group of guys with a lot of experience and great information
> Doug
>
> Doug Massey N4ZZT
> Massey Radio Labs
> Johnston SC
> www.masseyradiolabs.com