My new transmitter.

[ke7trp]

Update.  Got the J500 and HRO50T running last night.  We ran RG217 from the game room to the ham shack. 75 ft made it. I found satelite TV cable installer come out to run the cable through the attic.  It was 135F in there.  Poor kid.  He came out with wall plates for the huge RG217 coax.  It really looks nice and charged me $100. Cant beat that, I tipped him $50.  Anyone that would go into an attic during an AZ summer deserves a tip.

Why RG217?  We had 75ft of it here with factory installed N connectors so we used it. 

I set up the J500 with the HRO 50T. I recapped this radio last year. It has all caps changed, All new tubes and all resistors changed as needed.  I have 9 coils for this radio. I never used it much after the rebuild.  It really sounds great.  Much better then the HRO60 as far as sound quality on AM goes.

I ran the station for an hour on 80 meters and an hour on 40 meters today.  No issues. I am running the J500 on 120 volt wall socket for now.  The wall socket is on the wall next to the power panel so the run is very short.  I loaded the rig up to 350watts and it ran that way perfectly.  I will have an electrician come out soon to run a 220 volt line for the transmitter.  I am searching for a desk KW now and when I find one, I want it on 220 as well.  The Desk will sit next to this station with my HRO 60.

Here is the photo of the bone stock J500 and HRO50T.  The EV638 mic is smooth and clear.  No modifications will be done to the transmitter.  I have other rigs that sound better but I want to leave this one alone and just enjoy it the way it was supposed to be.
C

[WA1GFZ]

Very nice!
RG217 is good stuff N connectors not common.

[The Slab Bacon]

With the power supply/modulator under the table like that, it will give you a great place to prop yer feet on and keep yer toes warm on a cold night! ! ! !
    

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Looks good, Clark. Now you just need an old buzzard desk or table to complete the look, maybe an old WRL map and some QSLs tacked on the wall. It'll add 2db to your signal, at least.

[ke7trp]

With the power supply/modulator under the table like that, it will give you a great place to prop yer feet on and keep yer toes warm on a cold night! ! ! !
    

It was 117 Degrees here at the house yesterday and that heat is NOT NEEDED AT THIS TIME  

[K5MIL]

Nice short contact with Clark this afternoon on 40M. The 500 really sounded good, 20 over 9, very nice clear audio and he was even able to copy my 50 watts from the recently acquired Ranger.

Bill - K5MIL

[ke7trp]

Bill. It was a real pleasure making the contact today on 40. Maybe we can try again tomorrow? Your ranger sounded great here!

[ke7trp]

Transmitter is running strong.  20M has been open across us so I tried to get the station loaded up.  No RX out of the HRO50t with A coil.  

Could not get any osc working with the A coil. Tried B coil and nothing.  40, 80, 160 and BC band coils all work perfect.

The HRO 50t uses two 455 KC IFs and both stages are active all the time.  Both stages where working also. I could detune each one and see a change in Gain.  Spent an hour measuring voltages and changing caps that did not need to be changed.  

THen my Good Friend Jon came over with his A coil.  His A coil was dead in my HRO50 so we then knew it was the RXer.  After a few minutes he found that the Screen bypass cap was missing from the MIXER tube!

It was simply never installed at the factory. The Resistor was soldered directly to the screen pin and had never been unsoldered.  It was glazed over like the rest of the solder joints in the rig.

The man that owned the rig probably never tried the A coil and if he did, maybe he did not feel like trying to fix it or ship it off to have it fixed.  The radio has noise but it was in no mans land so maybe he figured the band was dead

I grabbed a .01 from the bin and soldered it in.  Bingo.  A and B coils started working.  I aligned the osc coil for both Gen and band spread and set the RF coils for max signal.  

TIP: I find its easier to just turn the rig off, yank the coil, turn the screw, put the coil back and turn the rig back on.  The scews are very soft metal and will strip easy if you try to adjust them from the top. Mine where damn near frozen so the problem was worse.  Use a 1/4 inch nut driver.. You can get a nice purchase on the scew and adjust the coils without damage.

After all of this, I pointed the Mosely beam east and loaded the J500 and HRO50T up on 14.286 and started calling CQ.  The J500 does 400 watts Carrier at full load. I backed it off to 280ma where it makes 375 on the nose.  The plate current stays rock sold at 280.  At 300, it back swings a bit so I figure 280 is where the rig likes to be.

After 10 minutes of an SSB'r screaming into his mic yelling at me for calling CQ above the "DX calling frequency"  what ever that is...  I got a reply from W6PR/0.  He was at his dads house in Iowa using a DX100 and SB303 into a Thunderbird beam. We had a nice chat and said my J500 sounded clear and strong.  Paul had just recapped and repaired his dads DX100 and was testing it.  His station sounded great!

What a neat old transmitter this Five hundred is... I am just loving it!

C

Edit.. The mising cap was on the mixer tube. The OSc tune is a triode and has no screen.  The missing cap was on the 6BE6

[Opcom]

There is something to be said for enjoying these things and not putting the closed box on a shelf and revering them.

It's true for all things, from that brand new transmitter to the smallest item. When something significant like this transmitter is found, I have to ask myself why it was never used by previous owner(s)? Was it because they didn't want to ruin the pristine-ness by un-boxing it?

I have an NE-1W lamp. It's a big T8 bulb, candelabra base, internal resistor lamp probably at least as old as that Johnson. It sat on a high shelf for over 10 years me not wanting to 'use it up' for some frivolous purpose until I found the cat playing with it on the floor. Its a night light now, only on when I have to get up, but still, what's the point in having something that's never used? Who will value our equipment after we have no further use for it?

Enjoy that new transmitter! You will have more fun with it than anyone else ever will. I'll make the best of the neon lamp 8-)

[Pete, WA2CWA]

I have an NE-1W lamp. It's a big T8 bulb, candelabra base, internal resistor lamp probably at least as old as that Johnson. It sat on a high shelf for over 10 years me not wanting to 'use it up' for some frivolous purpose until I found the cat playing with it on the floor. Its a night light now, only on when I have to get up, but still, what's the point in having something that's never used? Who will value our equipment after we have no further use for it?

Enjoy that new transmitter! You will have more fun with it than anyone else ever will. I'll make the best of the neon lamp 8-)

I have several. Use them to check for stray RF when working on a transmitter. Hang one on your wire antenna and scare the heck out of your neighbors at night. Very effective on CW.

[Opcom]

I have an NE-1W lamp. It's a big T8 bulb, candelabra base, internal resistor lamp probably at least as old as that Johnson. It sat on a high shelf for over 10 years me not wanting to 'use it up' for some frivolous purpose until I found the cat playing with it on the floor. Its a night light now, only on when I have to get up, but still, what's the point in having something that's never used? Who will value our equipment after we have no further use for it?

Enjoy that new transmitter! You will have more fun with it than anyone else ever will. I'll make the best of the neon lamp 8-)

I have several. Use them to check for stray RF when working on a transmitter. Hang one on your wire antenna and scare the heck out of your neighbors at night. Very effective on CW.

That's an interesting and good use for them. You are lucky to have a few. When the antenna went up I considered doing something like that with a little black light bulb but thought I would get the blame for TV interference if anyone saw it flashing. PC speaker interference is worse. darn part 15 equipment, ought to be a law.

[ke7trp]

Thanks for the comments. I am really enjoying the 500.  The Lamp looks really cool! 

Pete your story reminds me when we took flouresent bulbs up to the top of South mountain (TV and radio towers) and they lit up in our hands at night..

C

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Pete your story reminds me when we took flouresent bulbs up to the top of South mountain (TV and radio towers) and they lit up in our hands at night..

C

Did that many years ago. Strapped two florescent tubes, one at each end of a 40 meter dipole. Although the tubes could be seen in daylight hours, at night when on the air, it provoked neighbors pointing to the house with the crazy guy talking to aliens with light beams.

[ke7trp]

 That must have been a sight.  I remember being a kid and heat shrinking a Radio shack Neon lamp to the tip of our mobile antennas.  They would light up super bright as we keyed up and talked.   That was a big craze around here.  All these cars running around with flashing Red lights on the top of the antenna. ha

C

[Pete, WA2CWA]

That must have been a sight.  I remember being a kid and heat shrinking a Radio shack Neon lamp to the tip of our mobile antennas.  They would light up super bright as we keyed up and talked.   That was a big craze around here.  All these cars running around with flashing Red lights on the top of the antenna. ha

C

I think Antenna Specialists (or one of those 70's antenna manufacturers)  sold CB mobile antennas that had a lamp on the end of the antenna.

[Opcom]

That must have been a sight.  I remember being a kid and heat shrinking a Radio shack Neon lamp to the tip of our mobile antennas.  They would light up super bright as we keyed up and talked.   That was a big craze around here.  All these cars running around with flashing Red lights on the top of the antenna. ha

C

I think Antenna Specialists (or one of those 70's antenna manufacturers)  sold CB mobile antennas that had a lamp on the end of the antenna.

 

There were also 'add-on' neon lamp tips that could be bought. In those days there was an adapter to allowed the CB to use the car's AM/FM antenna for CB too. In those days the 70's GM vehicles had the antenna wire embedded in the windshield.  I used to have a 75W Palomar amplifier and one of those adapters and it worked OK for short transmissions. An 8 watt T5 green-colored fluorescent xerox copier lamp was mounted just above the rear view mirror in a 1970 Cutlass. That is right where the two little embedded wired tee out to the sides. The glow at night was astounding.

[ke7trp]

Transmitter is running great.  A few more hours of use on it.  40 meters today for about an hour.  No trouble at all. Gets good comments on audio with EV638 mic.  All the old caps and tubes where still good after all these years. 

C

[W3RSW]

Glad your having so much fun.  Great to put new old stock on the air.
About all those " old tubes and caps," obviously they were sequestered in an entropy proof safe room for all these years.

You can remove them from the pyramid's "focus locus" anytime now.  We won't tell. 

[ke7trp]

Try a hall closet in PHX AZ with a year round 70 to 80F temp in total darkness    Like a fine wine in a cellar,  This J500 only got better with age

Got a new viking valiant.  Lets see if that one comes up and talks the talk or pops the pops.


C