Ok gang, I've decided to put my experience's down on "paper" here on the web for those of you who might find it interesting . I'm going to tell you about my trials and errors in restoring old "boat anchor" ham gear. I've been buying lots of old tube gear lately , and not all of it has been "plug and play" ! Some of the rigs I've purchased have needed some work to bring them up to where I like them. I'm also going to solicit other suggestions and repair tips from those of you who may be more experienced than I . So , if you have a tip or trick that you have used in restoring these old gems please share it with everyone else ! I'll give you credit for your submission should it find its way on this page.

One of my recent purchase's was a Galaxy 5 transceiver. When I first received this rig, it was a mess to say the least ! At first I thought "oh no...... what have I gotten into !!??" . But after getting it home and hooked up , I was making contacts on 20 meters . I was working DX stations, as well as stations in the U.S. of A. . One gentleman in W. V. gave me a "20 over S-9 " report, and we carried on a QSO for over an hour with no problems. I was in "love" with this rig, I love the cool ,red-white and blue, analog dial display ! This rig is cool baby , classic '60's styling and technology ! Then the next day I noticed a problem in the RX ( receiver for the unwashed ) . The rig would cut out on RX after it was on for about 30 minutes. I thought it might be a dirty band switch or RF gain control. Nothing too serious that some contact cleaner couldn't take care of ( yeah right ! ) . It's never that simple no matter how much you hope and pray ! I did the usual cleaning with the contact cleaner , no change . I then figured that it must be a tube that had gone bad. I contacted a tube vendor and purchased all the tubes to swap out and check. The problem still remained after swapping out all the tubes that I had replacements for. I posted my dilemma to the national e-mail reflector hoping to get some help from the more experienced hams. I did get a lot of suggestions on what to look for . One of the gentlemen told me to look in the AVC or AGC circuits. Others suggested that I check out the transistors and capacitors. I started looking at the AVC circuit.

The AVC circuit is on a small printed circuit board , tucked neatly away underneath the chassis near the finals. I carefully removed the three screws holding it in . I looked at the solder side of the board first , figuring it might be a cold solder joint or a small hairline crack in the board. This problem was heat related , and sometimes if there is a crack in the board , you will only notice it when it gets warm. Also, cold solder joints show up after the board has warmed up in some cases ( heat causes things to expand ) . So , I took my soldering iron and went over the areas I thought looked bad. Turned the rig back on , and the problem still remained ! I did this several times , sometimes I thought I had the problem fixed , then it would return again. Leaving me scratching my head as to what to do next ! The problem would sometimes just go away on its own , then return. An intermittent problem is a nightmare on any piece of equipment . I decided that I needed some parts and supplies to track this problem down , so I placed an order with Tech. America (tm). I bought resistors , capacitors , and some Circuit Chiller (tm) . When the supplies arrived , I rushed home and tore into the radio. When the problem showed up , I'd spray the board with the Circuit Chiller (tm) hoping to pinpoint the bad component. I thought I had when I sprayed one of the transistors , a 2N2926. The AVC uses four transistors; 3 , 2N2926's and one 2N1098. Every time I sprayed one of the 2N2926's , the rx would come right back the way it should ! So, I took out the catalog of parts and proceeded to look for an 2N2926 transistor. I didn't find the exact number listed , so I called my friend Greg ( WB7DUO) who I knew would be able to look up the transistor for me and give me another number to look for. Turned out to be a general purpose NPN and a common 2N2222 or 2N4401 ought to do the job just fine. Greg just happens to have those in his "junk" box ! I rush over to get the parts and end up staying for dinner ! We BBQ'ed up a couple of choice steaks and enjoy each others company while our wives are out of town . I get the transistor from him and come home . As soon as I get home I start working on the Galaxy . I pulled the transistor out and replaced it with a 2N4401, turn the rig on and the problem still remains ! Only this time its there from the get go ! UUUGGGGGGGGG !!! I worked on this rig until five in the morning trying to get it to work, no change . I decide that I'm too tired to continue and go to bed.

In the "morning" around noon , I get up out of bed and head back into the radio room to continue my frustration working on the Galaxy. I decide to give Greg a call , maybe he will have some suggestions that my cloudy head can't think of . He looks up the pin out on the transistor and explains to me where the collector and the base are on the 2N4401's . I had installed the part wrong, and needed to swap two legs into different holes. I removed the transistor and proceeded to install it correctly. Turn the rig on again , and now it works , only the problem comes back as before ! I decide to replace the remaining two 2N2926's , thinking that maybe they were bad as well. At this point , I had gone through the whole can of Circuit Chiller (tm) trying to locate the bad component !

After swapping out the other two transistors, the problem still remained . I decided to place another order for parts and supplies. This time every darn part on that board was going to get replaced ! Several days had passed while I was waiting for my package to arrive, and I basically forgot about the Galaxy during the wait. The afternoon when they did arrive I started at it again. Replacing one resistor at a time along with every electrolytic capacitor on the board . The rx seemed to be working better , but it's still not right. Out comes the new can of Circuit Chiller (tm) ! Spray the board again and wow , it works great ! I'd spray it on a disc cap. and the rx would spring to life every time ! It has got to be that cap. I thought to myself. But I don't have a replacement . Another call to Greg on the phone . Lets see what he's got in his "junk" box one more time ! Yep, sure enough , he's got a cap that is close to what I need . I rush over and pick them up , bring them home and install them . Turn on the rig and ........ WOW !!! NO PROBLEM !!!! But wait , maybe it's just toying with me ??? Trying not to get too excited , I thought I'd better leave the rig on for awhile and see. Sure enough , that was the bad component . The radio had been on for over 30 minutes and no sign of the problem ! That disc cap. was bad , it was a . 1 MFD 50V ( that's POINT ONE MFD ) . The Galaxy has been working great ever since. In fact , I think it even sounds better since I rebuilt the AVC board ! Maybe its just my imagination , I don't know. I have a schematic coming , so I'll tell you exactly which part it was should you ever need to locate it. Now I'm going to clean the Galaxy up and repaint the cabinet. It should really look good after I get finished with it . I'm going to repaint it it's original color , black wrinkle. The power supply console needs a new paint job too , so I'll be doing that as well. Here's the symptoms that I experienced on my Galaxy 5.
The receiver would come on normal at first . Then , after about a ten to fifteen minute warm-up period , the receive would go dead. Whenever this happened , the S-meter would "peg" all the way over to the right hand side of the scale. Then slowly come back down about mid way , and "peg" again. Sometimes , it would continue to work longer than others . The radio was acting like I was turning the RF gain control fully CCW ( counter clockwise ), then fully CW ( clockwise ) really fast. During these periods , the RF gain control had no effect what so ever. This problem was intermittent and heat related , it only occurred when the radio had warmed up . Then it would come and go , sometimes dropping out for several minutes at a time . It was very frustrating to say the least. I decided to repaint the cabinets on both the rig and the power supply. I wanted to keep this rig original , so I used the original black wrinkle paint. I scrubbed the cabinets in the bathtub, using hot water and some Joy (tm) dish washing soap and a toothbrush. They came out clean , but still needed to be repainted. There were spots on both cabinets that were scraped and scratched down to the metal. After letting them dry over night, I sanded them both with some 220 grit sand paper. I put a good coat of primer on both cabinets , then shot them with the wrinkle paint. Wrinkle paint needs to go on thick without running to get a good wrinkle pattern. So I applied it accordingly one side at a time and waited for the paint to wrinkle. This usually takes a couple of hours to get the paint to wrinkle up . I set each cabinet under a lamp with a 70 watt bulb to speed this process up . After the painting was complete I let each cabinet dry for several days before putting the equipment back inside . While they were drying , I cleaned the chassis on the rig. I cleaned the chassis using Q-Tips (tm) and some rubbing alcohol. Put on some good music and enjoy the work , it's very time consuming ! They both came out really nice, just like new ! The cabinet for the power supply had some dents in it , and the wrinkle paint hid them well ! You almost cannot see any of the dents unless you know where to look. I took all of the knobs off , and cleaned them in Joy (tm) to remove the gunk and cigarette garbage off of them. The white line had deteriorated over time and use , so I'm repainting those using some Testors (tm) white paint ( you can find this paint anywhere models are sold ). This rig is going to be a keeper when I get finished with it ! I'll be adding before and after pictures of this rig right here as soon as I get them . So stay tuned !!!!
Have a suggestion for restoring old ham gear ? Send it in to me and I may use it here for others to benefit from ! I'm looking for little tips and tricks in restoring old tube gear , transceivers , receivers , and transmitters . Try to keep it as short and to the point as possible ( try not to be long winded like me ! ) . Also , include your e-mail address , call , name , and web site URL if you have one. Tnx.... de KA7NOC