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Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Alan Re-Caps His Drake 2-B



That Drake 2-B is a beautiful thing.   Every time I look at an older tube rig I'm reminded of the three dimensionality of these old machines.   Solid-state rigs are in Flatland, but tube rigs are in three dimensions.

Alan makes a very cool use of the I-pad in this repair.  And I'm jealous of his Hayseed Hamfest Electrolytic (I opted for the multiple caps hanging below the chassis).  Excellent management of the solder-sucker by Alan.  And I was impressed by the disciplined way he pulls solder from the reel -- he has the reel right next tot he rig and dispenses it directly.  I tend to hack off small lengths of solder and end up with lots of little bits of solder on the bench. 

Glad to hear that the other caps on the Drake are standing the test of time.  I wish the same could be said for all the caps in my Heath HW-101.

One thing caught my eye in Alan's video:  The dial cord.   You know you have become a true 2-B aficionado when you have actually gotten good at replacing the dial cord.  It is something of a rite of passage.   Perhaps this will serve as the basis for a future video by W2AEW,

Thanks Alan!  And congrats on passing 4 MILLION YouTube views.  People watch because your videos are so good.   

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1 comment:

  1. Thanks Bill! I decided to replace the paper/wax caps anyway, since there are only 5 of them. In doing the rest of the initial checkout, I found a bad resistor in the front end RF amplifier. With that all done, the rig actually works pretty well. I'll do a check on the alignment.

    I've never done a dial cord on this rig, I hope this one holds out for a while! Not sure I want to be *that much* of an aficionado on the 2B!

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