Building, Troubleshooting, and Connecting Through Amateur Radio

Category Boat Anchor

HW-101 Refurbishment – 7. Recapping

Why Replace? It is well known that over time, Electrolytic capacitor dry out and are no longer usable. Some spend time to use a Variac to reform the capacitors, with the HW-101 it is fairly easy to replace these capacitors… Continue Reading →

HW-101 Refurbishment – 6. Contact Cleaning

The next step in this refurbishment is to clean the contacts on the rig and lubricate the bears. The primary contact cleaner of choice is DeoxIT D5. Cleaning the Tube Sockets I start by cleaning out the tube sockets, I… Continue Reading →

HW-101 Refurbishment – 5. Resistors – Check and replace out of tolerance

The next step in the refurbishment process is to check all of the resistors to make sure that they are within tolerance. The Heathkit HW-100 series radios use carbon composition resistors that as they age can come out of tolerance…. Continue Reading →

HW-101 Refurbishment – 4. General Cleanup

In this step of the process we further remove the panels and knobs from the radio and perform a general cleanup including a soapy wash, rinse cycle followed by “baking” the rig . Cleaning Preparation Prior to washing down the… Continue Reading →

HW-101 Refurbishment – 3. Tubes – Pull, Clean and Test

The next step in the process is to start depopulating the vacuum tubes. As the tubes are depopulated feel free to use the section as a reference. Tube Locations, Part Number and Functions Reference designators are a short hand identifier… Continue Reading →

HW-101 Refurbishment – 2. Power up (optional)

If you talk with different Elmers this step will likely lead to much debate. The next step in the refurbishment process that I follow is completely optional and is an initial power up and rough functional check. The real question… Continue Reading →

HW-101 Refurbishment – 1. Visual Inspection

Introduction – Prior to performing any work on a boat anchor I perform a simple visual inspection to look for obvious issues before we get into the “meat and potatoes” of cleanup. In many cases a through visual inspection should… Continue Reading →

HW-101 Refurbishment – Preface

Introduction In 2003 with my General class privileges in hand, I picked up my first HF radio at a ham swap, a Heathkit HW-100. At the time of purchasing the radio I had no experience working with vacuum tubes and… Continue Reading →

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