I just received a very nice SX-117, and started to clean it up. What is
nice about it, it only had light surface dust on it and cleaning up was only
wiping down with a rag and some pressurized air. Needs a few tubes, their
on order.

Got down to the main tuning control and it was slipping badly. The
compression disks were basically rotating without any friction to turn the
main tuning dial or the tuning cap. This is the fix I tried and it worked
nicely.

1) With a syringe oil applicator, applied lubrication (light oil) to all
bearings or rotating parts in the tuning mechanism, including the main
tuning cap brearings.

2) Carefully, very carefully, used a de-greaser to clean out the gunk
between the friction plates. The degreaser can melt plastic so a spray tube
was used to target just the metal parts. Lots of black gunk came out.

3) Rotated the tuning back and forth and whenever it slipped, hit the
friction plates with more de-greaser.

4) Vaseline lubed, the brass main tuning gearing.

The radio now has solid tuning, no slippage at all.

Bill G.
K2WH

Just thought i'd mention that the first television we had, around
1953 I guess it was, was a Hallicrafters. Around 21 inch B&W. It did
have VHF AND UHF tuners. We lived in Columbus Ga and there was one
UHF (28) and one VHF (4) station. Before that you could see some
station out of Atlanta Ga that was mostly snow... It was only on a
few hours in the afternoon and us kids would go to one of the few
houses that had a TV and all sit around the living room and watch
Howdy Doody and Roy Rogers/Gabby Hayes when the pix would come in
good enough to see anything. Otherwise we could hear the audio most
of the time. Man we thought we were UP TOWN. It was like a theater
with 8 or 10 of us sitting there on the floor trying to see these
first TV shows in our area. The house we went to was on top of a high
hill and they had one of those fancy antennas..ha ha remember the
stacked conical antennas, like a dipole with a reflector and
sometimes stacked from 2 to 6 together and they were always on top of
a telephone pole set in the yard. This was great television for us
kids as we had never seen anything like this before.

I tried to find a pix of the old tv but havent found that model yet.
I guess it was pretty fancy for the time and did have a large screen.
Local tv stayed on til about maybe 10 or 11 at night. After getting
out of the Navy (Electronics tech, Radar) I did work as a studio
engineer for one of these stations in the late 60's.

Jerry / W1NRA

Interesting story. I haven't a clue as to what was our first TV. I
know when I was in my early teens or just prior to that ~ 10 years old,
we had a Magnavox. Earlier than that, I don't think we could afford a
TV. Come to think of it, I don't remember watching TV at all in my
early youth. This would be 1950 to 1960. Hmmm. Maybe I was deprived
as a kid.

So, if you had a Hallicrafters and a TV to boot, you were as you say,
UP TOWN. Lucky guy.

K2WH

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"I tried to find a pix of the old tv but havent found that model yet."

I don't know if you have it, but Chuck Dachis' book "Radios By
Hallicrafters" has many pictures of old hallicrafters TV's, many of
them the large console types. So, if you do not have the book, maybe
you should get yourself one. Even without the TV search, it is loaded
with alot of images and information about all Hallicrafters equipment.

K2WH

W1NRA web site..........http://www.geocities.com/w1nra/home.html
W1NRA photo albums......http://photos.yahoo.com/w1nra
Beacon information......http://www.geocities.com/w1nra/beacon_1.html
Ten meter yahoo group...http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TenMeterBeacons/
School bus information..http://www.geocities.com/jo_hemby/home.html
USS LIBERTY PAGE....... http://www.geocities.com/w1nra/uss_liberty1.html

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Hi Jerry / Bill & others;

An interesting TV story Jerry. I grew up in Spokane and left for college (1951) before TV had arrived in Spokane. Seattle had a channel or two but while in college for four years I saw maybe a total of one or two hours. After college I entered the Air Force and was stationed in Cheyenne, Wyoming which also had no TV stations (at least until after 1957). Denver was 100 miles to the South and when one of the fellows in the BOQ left the Air Force I bought his Admiral 17 in. TV for $25. I built my own antenna by salvaging 1/4 in. aluminum tubing from a scrapped B-29 fuselage on base (a director, dipole, and reflector mounted on a wooden beam). The signal was just ok but it was fun building the antenna and mounting it on the roof of the BOQ. I had the TV for 20 years and during that time replaced the picture tube, fly-back transformer, and a bunch of other tubes. TV is still kind of low on my priority of things to do.
As Bill mentioned, you should get a copy of Chuck Dachis' Hallicrafters book - well worth the price.

73, Skip Magnuson W7WGM

I just found a Halli product that is not in Chucks book. The owner states
it is a Canada Hallicrafters product. My question, did Chuck include Canada
Hallicrafters products in his book?

K2WH

Hi guys, working on my sx-117 and encountered a strange problem and want to
pass it by the crowd.

I was having trouble receiving signals until I realized the BFO control was
turned all the way to the right. Rotating the control all the way to the
left, brought the receiver back to life. AM works great but SSB has a
problem. The sound of SSB sounded similar to an IF shift control being
turned to far to one side (tinny). Reading the alignment procedure for the
BFO, I followed it exactly. It states, put the receiver in USB, put on the
100kc calibrator and tune to almost zero beat. Switch to LSB and the beat
note should not change appreciably. Well, when I switched sidebands, the
zero beat was out of there.

Going further in the book, I followed the "Major" BFO adjustment procedure
and the receiver came back beautifully. Nice signals good reception, AM and
SSB but, here is the perplexing problem.

I can set the rig to LSB, and tune in a LSB signal. Switching to USB,
results in the signal moving 1khz in one direction or the other (crystals).
This is normal. However, I can retune the same LSB signal and understand
the signal as though the receiver was still in LSB even though the receiver
is in USB mode!

Basically, it does not seem to matter if the receiver is in LSB or USB, I
can still make any SSB signal regardless of their sideband, intelligible. I
believe it is a BFO thing. I think it is out of adjustment and inserting
carrier when it should not. Sort of like an older receiver without a
product detector. With a BFO, it did not matter what sideband the
transmitting station was on, you could always tune it in.

Any ideas out there would be greatly appreciated.

Bill
K2WH

Solved the USB/LSB switching problem in my SX-117. As I guessed, the BFO
was out of alignment but not a heck of a lot and I needed to get it back to
its center frequency of 50 khz.

The manual states the BFO frequency is set at exactly (their words) 50 khz.
Looking at the schematic, I determined I could connect my 756pro test rig
through a coupling cap and find out where the BFO was on the spectrum scope.
I found it at 48.6 khz. I unlocked the BFO control, and carefully rotated
the slug till I had exactly a 50khz blip on the scope.

At that point I locked down the BFO (mechanically) and tried the receiver
again. It now acts like a true SSB receiver in that I can no longer receive
USB and LSB in any mode SSB position. USB is now USB and LSB is now LSB on
the mode switch.

One thing is puzzling to me however. The manual says to "not use the BFO to
tune in signals", and "it is set at the factory at exactly 50 khz". Why
then oh why, would Hallicrafters bring the BFO frequency control out the
front panel so you can change the frequency?

Other rigs let you adjust the BFO level or just turn it on or off but they
don't provide a control to change the BFO frequency. My SX-111 just has an
on/off BFO switch. My SX-17 has a BFO level control. Most rigs just have
BFO on or off.

Why Hallicrafters brought out the control, I cannot answer but, I think
maybe this BFO control, the ability to change frequency, was a precursor to
the "IF Shift" control found on many of today's rigs. What do you think?

K2WH

Just performed a complete alignment of the SX-117 and all went well
with better performance. Having the proper equipment to perform the
alignment is of great help of course.

Anyway, before the alignment, and after this alignment, I still have
inverted USB and LSB. That is, in the LSB switch postion, I actually
receive USB and in USB I receive in LSB. I swapped the (2) crystals,
1.600khz and 1.700 khz, and all is fine. However, the sockets the
crystal go in are labeled the other way. In other words, to get the
USB/LSB correct, I switched the crystal into the opposing sockets.
The 1600khz crystal in the 1.700khz socket and so forth. I checked
the crystal frequencies and they are exactly on frequency.

Checking the USB/LSB switching, the correct crystal is being
selected. Now I have a delima where I have physically reversed the
crystals into the incorrect sockets, but the receiver works. Anyone
with ideas of what is going on here? Is it possible Hallicrafters
labeled the socket incorrectly or put the socket in backwards. Could
someone have rewired the switch to socket connection.

K2WH

I'm new to the group and I'm just wondering what kinds of
antennas (length, electrical arrangement) people have used
with a Hallicrafters radio such as the S38 type (or similar).

Has anyone used a loop antenna with a model such as the S38?

A previous owner an S38 radio suggested an untuned long wire antenna,
but a 40 ft length of wire seemed to cause a lot of overloading
on mine.

Also, AM is quite noisy (probably local noise) below 800 kHz with
a long wire.

I'm interested in details like lengths and / or electrical
arrangements (dipole,sloper, etc.) that have been used.

I'd welcome hearing anyone's shortwave and AM listening experiences
with a S38 model.


Thanks

Tuberadioguy

Hi I use a slinky antenna home made but like the antennas sold on
ebay. Its hanging on a hook on my shop door. I do not think I have
$5 invested. A pece of wire a push on connector to fit the slinky
and some pvc pipe to insulate the ends.
Tom


--- In HallicraftersRadios@..., "tuberadioguy"
<jabakdb@s...> wrote:

I'm new to the group and I'm just wondering what kinds of
antennas (length, electrical arrangement) people have used
with a Hallicrafters radio such as the S38 type (or similar).

Has anyone used a loop antenna with a model such as the S38?

A previous owner an S38 radio suggested an untuned long wire

antenna,

but a 40 ft length of wire seemed to cause a lot of overloading
on mine.

Also, AM is quite noisy (probably local noise) below 800 kHz with
a long wire.

I'm interested in details like lengths and / or electrical
arrangements (dipole,sloper, etc.) that have been used.

I'd welcome hearing anyone's shortwave and AM listening

experiences

with a S38 model.


Thanks

Tuberadioguy

Hi all does any one have a spair knob for a SX 110 I just bought a sx
on Ebay and it is missing a knob.
Tom kd8bjh

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Still working on the SX-117 receiver. This is probably known by many old
radio restoration experts but I tried this idea with the knobs and it came
out quite well and I thought I would pass it along.

The knobs on the SX-117 and similar series radios, all have a white
reference line running the length of the knob from panel to the front of the
knob. On my SX-117 (probably used a lot), most of the white line has been
worn off. What I did was to take each knob individually, put it in a small
padded vise (to hold it steady) and using blue masking tape (blue leaves no
residue), I masked off the knob areas to only show this straight worn out
line. I then used a bottle of "White Out" to restore the line. White out
dries very quickly and after removing the tape, the knobs look perfect for
the most part and the white seems to stay put.

K2WH

This person sells knob inserts for various makes of equipment?
Thanks, Ed.

--- In HallicraftersRadios@..., Bill Gerhold <k2wh@o...>
wrote:

For a receiver such as the S-38, almost any long wire, straight or

looped

will work fine. I would just put up as much

wire as possible and go from there. If you are experiencing

overloading,

then I would check the receiver AVC circuit

Perhaps it is not functioning correctly. Have you checked the tubes?



K2WH

Thanks for the tip. It has all NOS tubes from Antique Electronics
Supply that arrived on Saturday!

What would be the expected
(approximate) range of the AVC voltage measured on the 12SA7 converter
tube with a) no antenna and b) a fairly strong local AM station?
Am I looking for a range of 1/2 volt or so or several volts difference
between conditions a) and b)? I wish I had another similar radio here
to compare with mine.


Thanks again

_____

From: HallicraftersRadios@...
[mailto:HallicraftersRadios@...] On Behalf Of Tom Zyniecki
Sent: Friday, May 20, 2005 9:04 AM
To: HallicraftersRadios@...
Subject: [HallicraftersRadios] Re: S-38C antenna



Hi I use a slinky antenna home made but like the antennas sold on
ebay. Its hanging on a hook on my shop door. I do not think I have
$5 invested. A pece of wire a push on connector to fit the slinky
and some pvc pipe to insulate the ends.
Tom


--- In HallicraftersRadios@..., "tuberadioguy"
<jabakdb@s...> wrote:

I'm new to the group and I'm just wondering what kinds of
antennas (length, electrical arrangement) people have used
with a Hallicrafters radio such as the S38 type (or similar).

Has anyone used a loop antenna with a model such as the S38?

A previous owner an S38 radio suggested an untuned long wire

antenna,

but a 40 ft length of wire seemed to cause a lot of overloading
on mine.

Also, AM is quite noisy (probably local noise) below 800 kHz with
a long wire.

I'm interested in details like lengths and / or electrical
arrangements (dipole,sloper, etc.) that have been used.

I'd welcome hearing anyone's shortwave and AM listening

experiences

with a S38 model.


Thanks

Tuberadioguy

This site is dedicated to the free and open exchange of ideas, advice,
technical and general information about Hallicrafters transmitters,
receivers, home entertainment equipment, and all other Hallicrafters
products. And more importantly, this site is dedicated to the large

number

of fans, cheerleaders and users of this wonderful equipment which

utilized

the technology of vacuum tubes.

Hallicrafters equipment was on the front lines (literally) during

the early

years with military communications radios. On the home front with

shortwave

receivers, amateur transmitters and home entertainment equipment.

Truly an

American company.

K2WH (Your Moderator)




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