Cool Cuban Hack

Arnie posted this on QRP-L. I thought it was a pretty ingenious way to work around
an unavailable part. FB Arnie!

My TS820 non QRP, but capable of QRP operation transceiver. ... has a similar type of female 9 pin socket to connect or not connect the external VFO. I needed a plug when not using the external VFO, and it was made using a Russian 6H2P dual triode that had a bad filament... I very carefully broke down the glass using nichrome wire at red hot temperature and then a thermal shock. The glass bulb broke nicely in a rounded even circle !!! Then I proceeded to remove the soldered connections to the two triodes... removed them , and soldered the wires required for the jumpers as specified by TS 820 manual... After checking that all was OK, then I poured Araldite epoxy to fill the glass ... It worked very well, and the only cost was the small amount of valuable epoxy ( not easy to find locally, and extremely useful for repair jobs and pasting the islands of the Manhattan style homebrew printed-nonprinted circuits !!! 73 and DX Arnie Coro CO2KK