Imabug's journey into electronics and amateur radio as AB4UG and VA6BUG
Over the last few years, two more Hammarlund radios got added to the boat anchor collection.
Now, in addition to my first Hammarlund HQ-100, there’s an HQ-110 and an HQ-170.
I haven’t looked in either of them or tested them out yet. The HQ-100 is still on the workbench waiting for me to get back to.
I guess I have a Hammarlund collection now. Hadn’t intended to start one. They just kind of fell into my lap. Not sure what I’ll do with them yet.
The HQ-100 has some new Class X2/Y1 capacitors across the AC input, a polarized two-prong power cord, a new multi-section can capacitor from Hayseed Hamfest, and now three “new” tubes.
After spending a few days checking over things, I put the front panel and knobs back on, plugged the radio in and was greeted with some warm glowing lights.
The two lamps behind the frequency dial indicator both came on, and a nice warm red glow was coming from most of the tubes. Three of them (a 12AX7 and two 6BA6s) were dark though. Fortunately I had acquired all the tubes I needed for the HQ-100 at past hamfests. After replacing the three tube and applying power again, all the tubes were lighting up!
Next step will be to attach a speaker and antenna and see how well, if at all, the radio receives.
At long last, the Hammarlund HQ-100 I picked up a few years ago is finally getting some time and attention on the workbench.
After a bit of cleaning outside, it was time to dig in and see what was going on. Removing the knobs and four slightly rusty screws let me remove the front panel to see if the band spread tuning dial could be fixed.
Turns out the frequency indicator dials (the large white disks) are connected to the tuning dial knob by friction fit. Turning the knob makes the indicator dials turn, and the shaft those dials are attached to are connected to the variable capacitors that do the tuning. The band spread dial was free-spinning because there wasn’t enough friction between the indicator dial and the tuning knob. While I was trying to figure out how to fix it, I discovered the nut at the back end of the tuning shaft was loose, and tightening that up made the tuning knob work again.
The other big issue I came across while looking around was a burnt capacitor across the AC input.
Not a good thing to see. I clipped the toasted capacitor out as well as the old two-prong non-polarized plug. I’ll see about wiring in a new three-prong plug and maybe a fuse as well.
Haven’t seen any other obvious component issues yet. There’s a multi-section electrolytic can capacitor that probably should be replaced, but there aren’t any signs of leakage.