Oooops.... aging my own BA's...

[wb4iuy]

I wonder if anyone else has this kind of luck. I was working in the workshop yesterday, getting a very clean Heath SB-630 console ready for cabint paint and a front panel cleaning. Somehow, I turned and knocked it off the workbench. Now I've got to remove the front panel and try to straighten it, and repair whatever else I damaged. Man, sometimes stuff just happens...check this out:

[N3DRB The Derb]

everybody goes through that. Part of the turf. 

I'm hoping I dont drop any good tx tubes on the concrete this year. 

[wb4iuy]

everybody goes through that. Part of the turf. 

I'm hoping I dont drop any good tx tubes on the concrete this year. 

Ouch, heheheehh.... I've dropped small receiving tubes, but nothing big (yet).

[AJ1G]

One of my prized possessions as a JN was an 813 (probably a reject) that my granddad had brought home from his job at the National Union tube plant in Newark, NJ during WW2.  Until it rolled off the operating table in my attic shack....

Another of my prized possessions as a JN was a working early 20s vintage near mint WE 7A amplifier with three WE216A tennis ball triodes given to be by my other grandfather.    And then it somehow fell to the floor and one of the WE216As shattered..a second one survived but its internal elements ended up knocked over at about a 30 degree angle off vertical.  I still have the amp - anyone know where I could get some replacement tubes for it?

[W3GMS]

Since we are sharing dropping stories, here is my best or worse one depending on how you look at it!   I had just bought a Collins 30K1 from Floyd (Sam) down in Parkesburg Pa.  This was years ago and I always told Sam that if he ever wanted to sell the rig I was interested in buying it.  So Bert, 3JYU and myself went down to move the beast down one flight of stairs onto the ground floor.  All that went off without a hitch since both Bert and I were a lot younger then!!  Well, when we got it back to GMS Radio, I was unpacking the other stuff that came with the transmitter.  I pulled a brand new 4-400 out of the box and dropped it on the concrete floor.  Not a good day but at least we did not drop the 30K !! 
Joe, W3GMS 

[W2ZE]

I dropped a brand new 833a that I just pulled out of the box.

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Ouch! Now that's gotta sting just a bit, Mike.

In keeping with Joe's 30K theme and as a warning to all 30K owners, my worst damage was done when I was trying to remove one of the extremely fragile 75TH modulator tubes from the deck of my 30K-5. Collins used a number of attachment methods through the run of 30Ks from simple clips on the plate and grid pins to actually using ceramic plate cap clips with the associated caps attached to the tubes. For some reason on the mod-5s, they used a combination C-clip/screw arrangement for the plate. Accessing this with the deck in the transmitter is impossible, so I decided to simply twist the base of the tube, lift it out of the socket, and remove the screw where I could better see and reach it. *snik* was the sound I heard as I lifted the tube up and turned it slightly sideways, as the lateral pressure built on the internal structure and the thin glass envelope gave way. Took me a while to find a replacement, and now I remove the entire deck from the transmitter to remove the tubes.

Also had a 250TH leap out of a box of stuff I was carrying to my truck after giving an old radio presentation to a group (this is particularly humbling of someone from the group is helping you carry things to your vehicle). And the most recent one a couple years back occurred when I was removing a 2A3 from my old BC-610E and neglected to take into account some kind of small speech amp module that was sitting in the deck held only by wires, with screws and other pointy objects jutting out the sides. It didn't help that the 2A3 required a lot of force to break free, 'break' being the key word here as it came loose and impacted one of the pointy things.

The longer you're involved with this old stuff, the more the list grows. If you handle enough of it, something is bound to fall, get lost, or otherwise damaged. Looking at it statistically doesn't make it any easier to accept when it happens, though.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

These sorts of things would never happen with a Flex.

[w1vtp]

MAAANNNN!!!

[w1vtp]

These sorts of things would never happen with a Flex.

SMUG

[WBear2GCR]

No, the Flex will just simply stop working or else do one of the many nasty things that computer based stuff does, like cease to do some necessary function, but do all the others. Whatcha gonna do then, wise guy? :p

[W9GT]

What I'm wondering is how you can be smug and Flexible at the same time

73,  Jack, W9GT

[Pete, WA2CWA]

No, the Flex will just simply stop working or else do one of the many nasty things that computer based stuff does, like cease to do some necessary function, but do all the others. Whatcha gonna do then, wise guy? :p

Re-install the software.

[W1RKW]

Ouch.  Never did it with a rig. And with an old BA, I wouldn't want to drop it on my foot.  I did that with some 813s recently.  Fortunately, the 813 isn't rare, at least for now.  Accidents happen.

[ke7trp]

Stuff happens.  I have Dropped tubes. Nothing expensive.  I got pretty mad when I broke the top of a 3-500 removing the plate cap once.  Vac leaked out.

Steve.. Look out for that Flex Virus thats floating around the internet.  It makes the Flex turn on in the middle of the night and play marry had a little lamb over and over.

C

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Heh. I heard it made the screen look like a S-20R. 

[ke7trp]

Now that is something I could get into..  If I could make the Screen look like any old BA I wanted. lol

[Bill, KD0HG]

Hi, Mike, how are you doing?

[wb4iuy]

Stuff happens.  I have Dropped tubes. Nothing expensive.  I got pretty mad when I broke the top of a 3-500 removing the plate cap once.  Vac leaked out.

Hahaha...you mean the outside world leaked in :-)

Dave WB4IUY
www.WB4IUY.net

[ke7trp]

True dat!

C

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Speaking of aging BAs, I've been meaning to ask, Dave - what is the crusty carcass in your avatar? Looks like an old Galaxy or other WRL/Globe rig....? I've seen worse come back from the dead, but boy - that one looks challenging.

[wb4iuy]

Speaking of aging BAs, I've been meaning to ask, Dave - what is the crusty carcass in your avatar? Looks like an old Galaxy or other WRL/Globe rig....? I've seen worse come back from the dead, but boy - that one looks challenging.

Yup, it's a Galaxy. I took it on a bet that I couldn't restore it. I need to learn when to walk away from a dare :-)  Good thing is (if there's such a thing), I've picked up two others for parts...

Dave Wb4IUY