10-04-2020, 11:51 PM
I decided to start on this AK. I was getting bored! this is a radio I purchased at an auction back in March. I liked the looks so I bought it fairly cheap. It actually worked as the filter caps had been replaced in the recent past. Almost all of the wire was rubber and in desperate need of replacement. Russ put me on to some modern rubber covered wire. Not as vibrant in color and not all of the colors available, but reasonable. the cabinet will need to be refinished as there is some veneer pealing and some previous repairs that I hope I can improve upon.
All of the caps have been restuffed ( and they are a bit of pain compared to typical tubular caps of the era) and resistors checked. A few had gone up in value and a suitable parallel addition brought those into range. One 1.5 watt was open so I molded a new one.
The radio is now playing very well even though most of the tubes check way below replacement value according to my TT-1. The 2A6 actually gave me fireworks inside when I tested it. But, it still works even though the diodes and the triode barely register on the meter.
I'm having an issue where the local oscillator dies on the two high bands as I move toward the lower part of the band. Increasing the feedback capacitor in the grid circuit for the oscillator remedied the problem, But I need to figure out why it happens. it could be just a very weak tube. AK must of gotten a good deal on 58's as all of the front end tubes are 58's.
Now I need to work on the cabinet. Not my favorite job. It may wait for a while!
All of the caps have been restuffed ( and they are a bit of pain compared to typical tubular caps of the era) and resistors checked. A few had gone up in value and a suitable parallel addition brought those into range. One 1.5 watt was open so I molded a new one.
The radio is now playing very well even though most of the tubes check way below replacement value according to my TT-1. The 2A6 actually gave me fireworks inside when I tested it. But, it still works even though the diodes and the triode barely register on the meter.
I'm having an issue where the local oscillator dies on the two high bands as I move toward the lower part of the band. Increasing the feedback capacitor in the grid circuit for the oscillator remedied the problem, But I need to figure out why it happens. it could be just a very weak tube. AK must of gotten a good deal on 58's as all of the front end tubes are 58's.
Now I need to work on the cabinet. Not my favorite job. It may wait for a while!
