A Valiant, a Ranger, and a Viking II

[w8khk]

I went to Huntsville looking for a Johnson AM rig.  A Valiant, a Ranger, and a Viking II followed me home.  Deals were too good to pass up. 

The Viker was not complete, mostly just missing a bunch of toobs.  The Ranger is very dusty, but no mods or updates, so a good cleaning and recap should get that one working.   I was told the Valiant was operational.  All the tubes were packed separately in bubble wrap.  When I opened it up, I found it is missing the plate choke, but other than that it is very clean and no mods.  So I will get them all working, decide what I want to keep, then post the "extras" as available.  Suggestions regarding pros and cons would be appreciated.  Right now I am researching the mods, and really do not yet know how to tell "late" vs. "early" versions of these rigs.  The fun begins!

I was thinking the Valiant would be neat to keep since it has a VFO, and the Ranger might be kewl to excite the screen modded 4x1.  We will see.

Saw lots of other anchors at the fest...  HROs, RMEs, Nationals, a Warrior, a Thunderbolt, and lots of DX20s, 40s, Heath VFOs, but no DX-100s to be found.  All in all, a good fest. 

[WQ9E]

Nice finds, congratulations.  I would say keep them all because you can never have too many boat anchors 

The Viking 1 and 2 are perhaps the most reliable rigs made by Johnson.  The Ranger is a cute classic.  The Valiant provides a great basis for a medium power station and is ready to go on SSB if you provide a low power exciter.  See, you have to keep them all!

A couple of cautions on the Valiant:

1.  ALWAYS loosen the set screws on the phenolic coupler to the VFO before turning the Valiant upside down to work on it; otherwise you will probably break it.

2. If it is an early Valiant take a good look at the wiring going to the 866A rectifier cathodes from the LV transformer, early units used standard hookup wire whose insulation does not withstand the HV impressed on it very well.  If it breaks down and the wires short together or to the chassis it will overload and take out the LV transformer; this is a fairly common failure mode in older Valiants.

3.  Before you strip out the clipper read the manual carefully, minimum clipping (i.e. no clipping) occurs at the FULL CLOCKWISE setting which is where you would normally run it.  Setting the control fully CCW (the intuitive minimum setting) is actually maximum and it will sound horrible.

4.  If it still has 866A HV rectifiers run them filament only for at least 10 minutes before the first time you apply HV.

5. If the original bias filter caps have not been replaced they are almost certainly bad and will likely result in you cooking your modulator tubes.

Once you take care of these minor issues (and install a plate choke) the Valiant should be quite reliable.  It was my novice rig and is still a favorite of mine.

Rodger WQ9E

[w8khk]

Rodger, thanks for all the helpful information.  I was already aware of the 866 fil wires, as I have been reading the recent posts.   But I was NOT aware of the coupler issue, really good to know before I start cleaning it up tomorrow morning!

I tend to agree that you can never have too many boat anchors, but if it turns out I do not use them all, better someone else can have fun instead of letting them collect dust on the shelf.  At first I was not aware the Viker did not have a VFO; I did not do my research before leaving home.  If I knew, I probably would have just looked for the Valiant or the Ranger; but knowing now that the Viker is a most reliable rig, I should finish my VFO project started a couple months ago.  I converted a scrap SB-401 LMO to tune the 75 meter phone band, it would work well with the Viker but it might need an intermediate stage to achieve proper drive level. 

I found the manuals and schematics on the BAMA mirror, so I should be able to determine which version I have.  That will also help me verify there are no foolish mods before I dive in.

Thanks again!
Rick

[N3DRB The Derb]

better yet, ditch the 866's in favor of the 3B28, about a million times more reliable but not nearly as pretty. drop in replacement.

maybe not a million, but it's a lot less finicky than 866's are.

[AF9J]

Naturally Rick,

Being biased as I am (after all, I restored one [with some help & suggestions]), I say the Viking II is the way to go.  It sounds like there were a lot of cool toys at the 'fest.

73,
Ellen - AF9J

[WQ9E]

Rick,

You are welcome for the info and I have spent a lot of time inside Valiants so I am always happy to help.  I am sure you are also already aware of the need to upsize the wattage rating of the VR tube dropping resistor inside the Ranger and Valiant VFO enclosures.  The only part that has ever failed on my Viking II was the dropping resistor designed to power the external Johnson VFO so I guess they were consistent with the use of under-rated parts here.

The resistor can be replaced by removing the left side of the VFO case (your left looking from the front) without complete VFO disassembly.

Make sure that all of the screws and mounting are very tight in the VFO enclosures on both the Ranger and the Valiant or you may have a chirping problem on 40 since the VFO and final are on the same frequency and any RF getting into the VFO will cause problems.  On one of my Valiants I had to add some shielding tape around where the shaft enters the VFO compartment to eliminate the problem.  I have never noticed the issue on 160 even though the VFO and final are also on the same frequency on this band.  Fortunately my Viking 500 has never had any problem with RF getting into the VFO.

If the VFO tuning is a bit rough you will need to disassemble and clean the ball reduction drive; after this the tuning should be smooth.  Email me for details if you need to do this operation.

Do check the bases for carbon tracking on the 5R4 rectifiers in you Viking II (and the sockets also).  Dust tends to build up here leading to arcs and carbon tracks.  My Viking 2 was OK but I had to submount the sockets in the Viking I to cure the problem since they were already heavily damaged.

If you need to touch up the paint, Plasti Kote GM 7191 is a very close match to the dark maroon Johnson used on the Valiant/Ranger cabinets.  Should be available at any auto or large home supply store near you.

Rodger WQ9E

[w8khk]

Derb, thanks for the suggestions.  I will not use the 866s, I will either go 3B28 or solid state.   Interesting I found the Valiant had one 3B24 and one 866A.  The 866A was GE, modern shape bulb, but it had a getter and I did not see any trace of mercury!  Never seen one like that before.

Ellen, the Viker seems like a well-built rig, if only it had a vfo!   I do not plan to use crystals, and I do not have an external vfo.  But I did convert an SB-401 LMO to the 75 meter band.  I have been toying with the idea of removing the crystal switch and crystal socket bank from the viker, and mounting the VFO above the chassis, using a right-angle or flex drive to tune using the crystal switch knob.  No holes, the mod would be completely reversible.  Only down side is that the rig would not do 160.  I am mainly interested in 75 and 40, so this should probably not be a problem.  So many options, so many projects.  The Ranger will probably be on the air first, as it needs only minimal work and mods.


Rodger, thanks so much for your detailed instructions.  Today I cleaned up the Ranger, looks much better now than I expected.  Even the transformers shine!  Pulled the side plate off the VFO and replaced the resistor (now under chassis).  Tested all the tubes, they are all very good.  No carbon tracks yet, but enough residue on the sockets of both the Ranger and the Viking II that they could start to form, so now everything is clean and arcs should not be a problem.  I will definitely need to find the paint you suggested.   I will contact you offline when I am ready to address the vfo drive. 

73, Rick

[AF9J]

Ellen, the Viker seems like a well-built rig, if only it had a vfo!   I do not plan to use crystals, and I do not have an external vfo.  But I did convert an SB-401 LMO to the 75 meter band.  I have been toying with the idea of removing the crystal switch and crystal socket bank from the viker, and mounting the VFO above the chassis, using a right-angle or flex drive to tune using the crystal switch knob.  No holes, the mod would be completely reversible.  Only down side is that the rig would not do 160.  I am mainly interested in 75 and 40, so this should probably not be a problem.  So many options, so many projects.  The Ranger will probably be on the air first, as it needs only minimal work and mods.

73, Rick

With me Rick, it's a non issue.  I got my hands on a dirt cheap Heathkit VF-1 VFO off of eBay (the gent selling it, mislisted it, which kept th price down [thanks for letting me know about it Rodger]).  It works fine with my Viker II (especially since I replaced the oscillator tube), and was much cheaper than the 122 VFO Johnson sold for the Viking II.  It also works on 160.  But, Iwill admit that out of laziness, on the Saturday morning Midwest Classic net, I just switch it over the the 3885 crystal I have as a leftover from the days when I used a Globe Scout 680.

73,
Ellen - AF9J