Slow Progress on the Globe Scout 40A

[WA2OLZ]

Power!

Replaced the A.C. cord as it was original and brittle. Replaced with a new 3-conductor cord.
The capacitor checker I ordered arrived today and it looks as if all of the old disc capacitors, at least those I could reach are OK. The can capacitors I ordered are about 60 years newer than the old aluminum cans and the mounting tabs are different, so the originals stay in place for now. Getting gutsy, I connected the transmitter to AC power, connected it to the Globe 755A VFO and ran the RF out through a wattmeter to a Cantenna dummy load. No flames is a good thing!

I have yet to clean the old grease from the tuning cap bearings, but decided to go for it anyway. After a 15 minute warm up (I don't own a Variac) it was time for crossed fingers and try to load it up. First noticed the oscillator shows only about 2.5 ma of drive. Not too bad, I guess, but the manual says tune to around, but not more than, 3ma. The plate dips and loads fine on all bands. Output seems to be limited to 22 watts or so. I swapped the 6146 with another used one I just bought and results were the same. It could be the wattmeter (Kenwood SW-2000) is inaccurate, I guess. I'll move the rig to the operating position when I can and see what the LDG meter shows.

I had an EV mic connected but it didn't seem to want to play nice - no audio. I quickly put the appropriate connector on an old D-104 I have and was able to see minor deflection on the plate meter with the mic gain turned to maximum. I just replaced the gain pot and now wonder if I screwed up. The old pot was 50K and the new also 50K but with an audio taper. Of course, I have no idea if that mic worked in the past so have lots of unknowns in play.

The really confusing thing to me is that I can't hear much of anything coming from the xmtr on the receiver right next to it. True, the rcvr antenna is on the roof and the dummy load inside, but I'd sure expect a loud carrier. I can hear the VFO zero through the receiver, so I think I'm in the right place. Strange.

At least it's sort of on the air after many decades, so I didn't break anything too bad, at least so far. I may need to take a ride down to Pete's (CWA) house if he would be willing to share his expertise. Anyway - progress!

73
Jack
WA2OLZ

[WA5VGO]

Are you sure about the value of mic gain pot? I'm thinking 500K makes more sense.

Darrell

[WA2OLZ]

Are you sure about the value of mic gain pot? I'm thinking 500K makes more sense.

Darrell

Right you are, Darrell. A slip of my ever-decreasing quantity of brain cells.

[WA2OLZ]

It's on the air! No contacts yet but a definite improvement.  I replaced the 6V6 oscillator and it seemed to get a bit more drive. My 'real' (LDG) wattmeter to the log periodic on the roof shows about 35W out, about what I expected. Now I can see some effect of modulation, although I don't know how it actually sounds on the air.

My wire antenna is down so I'm limited to 10M through 20M for now. Hope to make a contact later today. It's a bit of a kludge yet as I have to manually switch the antenna between the transmitter and receiver as well as manually flipping the transmit switch - but we're getting there.

Thanks to all you guys for the help!

73
Jack
WA2OLZ