Monday, October 8, 2012

Harv's Hallicrafters HT-37: A Thing of Beauty


Good Evening Bill,

Well with sore fingers, I’m glad to report that the upper deck of my newly acquired HT-37 is complete. (see enclosed photos)
Mice had a small party in this radio but aside from the numerous corrosion spots and few frayed wires,  the task of restoring was not too over whelming.
I have had my trusty Soldering Iron in high use mode lately.
All but the final tubes have the Hallicrafters logo stamped on them.
I had to replaced the Final Tune Capacitor C55 and have gone through all the modifications done to this radio during its 52 years of service.
The previous owner added an internal Antenna Relay (grey transformer near rear of deck.) and replaced the Mic connector with a Drake style phono jack. (I guess that’s acceptable.)

Now I’m onto the re-capping of the lower deck, De-ox the tube sockets and switches. Finally, the replacement of the rectifiers with solid state devices.
I’m documenting all the details just in case there is another solder melting soul out there that wants to restore their HT-37.
With some tender care, it should last another 50 years.

Bill, Keep on learning, Keep on burning (solder that is!)

73’s & Enjoy

Harv -=WA3EIB=-


Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

4 comments:

  1. I know this is an old post, but it's nice to see someone else is enjoying the HT 37s!

    I picked up mine at the Huntsville Hamfest back in August, and just recapped and aligned it a couple of weeks ago.

    The audio on these phasing transmitters is impressive, eh?

    73

    Steve/W2VMC

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    Replies
    1. Steve,
      I've been working on an HT 37 for several months now. Going to mate it with my SX 122.
      At 62 I finally got my license - Technician, so for now I'm stuck on 10 meters.
      The set was beautiful mint clean to begin with.
      Have completed changing both rectifiers to SS; replaced all the filter caps with Sprague Atoms.
      Slowly powered it up on a variac - B+ voltages spot on. Then hooked it to a dummy load - good output.
      Now I'm waiting for an amphenol plug for the control socket and a magnecraft coax relay I got on ebay.
      I also got the appropriate xstal from ICM for my alloted part on 10 meters.
      It's been a lot of fun working on this.
      The day I key it up on an antenna will be the first day I've ever transmitted over the air.

      Any thoughts or suggestions would be really appreciated.

      Peter/KM4JCF

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    2. Steve my email is: bruzzo_adelphia1@comcast.net

      Peter/KM4JCF

      Delete
  2. Is there a way we can have access to your documentation of the changes you made to your HT37? Thanks. I have 2 on my bench right now.

    ReplyDelete