KQ4LTR’s Boat Anchor Restoration

Abby KQ4LTR started a boat anchor (old radio) restoration back in spring. She wanted to restore a Hallicrafters SX-110 that previously belonged to former club member Francine KN7YL.

Abby started by clipping off the crumbling power cord, installing a fuse, replacing the “capacitor of death” with a safety capacitor, and replaced all the paper electrolytic capacitors (also called “recapping”). She tested all the tubes (real radios glow in the dark) on a Heathkit IT-17 tube checker.

She was almost finished by the end of summer but the start of college and completing her private pilot training consumed all her spare time.

Finally, a few weeks before Thanksgiving she was able to get to the finish line. Almost. She slowly brought the radio up on a Variac variable transformer without letting out any magic smoke. But no audio came out.

Further testing exceeded Kerry NH2A’s Peter Principle (level of competence) and the radio was brought to Dave N4MW’s test bench where a misvalued resistor was discovered in the BFO circuit and a bad 6SG7 converter tube was discovered.

Replacing these components brought the radio back to life. She learned about soldering and desoldering, how to read a schematic, check tubes, and add a fuse to a circuit. Abby did a great job on the restoration and has saved a venerable piece of radio gear from going to a land fill.

by Kerry, NH2A