Drake R8 Receiver

[kc2asb]

Between the filters starting to fail, and in some cases the main tuning encoders are failing too, I'm glad in a way I had to sell my 515. It was working 100% at that time, and since I'm in HF hell as far as listening goes, I probably should get rid of most of my other HF radios.

Makes sense. Parts for the 515 are un-obtanium, unless a parts radio can be found. That is pretty much true for all of this older equipment.

 

[Token]

I don’t know why, but back in the 60’s when ”transistor radios“ began to replace vacuum tube sets, I somehow got the idea that they were more or less maintenance free. Guess not. 😢

As a general statement, solid state (vs hollow state) uses less power, runs cooler, works at lower voltages (making constructing easier and use safer), and has a greater MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure).

But, that does not mean they last forever and that does not mean you don't have to do periodic maintenance to achieve peak performance. Everything fails eventually, and everything requires the occasional tune-up.

T!

 

[ratboy]

It's so hit and miss with stuff. Some of it's really old and works fine, and another one, seemingly identical is a corpse that is a parts donor. A friend of mine has a bunch of old transistor radios, and most of them work fine, nothing in the circuitry was ever changed in them. A couple have those weird CK222 transistors and they are noisy at this point, but most of the issues with the rest of them are rotted speaker cones, something easily fixed in a few minutes. Some have had the volume pot get scratchy, but I can't think of any that wore out. Since he has Parkinson's, I'm the one who works on them at this point. I did a half dozen speakers about a year or so ago. Some of them have the nail polish on the speaker screws, which makes it more of a hassle than need be.