WU2D's TR-3 -- Mike Refurbishes a Nice Old Drake Transceiver (PART 1) (Video)

There is a lot of Tribal Knowledge in this video.  And good discussion of the many moral issues faced by those of us who work on old gear. 

-- Mike seems apologetic about his blatant and blasphemous spray painting of the Drake copper chassis.  As well he should be. 

-- His stubborn replacement of the tube socket (to allow for shielding) seems wildly reckless to me.  The Radio Gods may retaliate with some unexpected instability in that circuit. 

-- He CORRECTLY refers to the rewiring of the final circuity (to accomodate 6146s) as "the evil thing."  Indeed. 

-- I love in the beginning how he is listening to some ham radio chatter and the guy is talking about the selection of COM PORTS. With old radios "we don't have COM PORTS -- we have an antenna connector."  Well put Mike. 

-- I was struck by how much the TR-3 innards look like my 2-B receiver.  But the TR-3 has no dial strings.  That is a major technological improvement. And it has a PTO.  Was this a case of Collins envy?

-- Mike adds a useful word to the lexicon:  "shotgunning" -- the indiscriminate replacement of entire categories of parts in old radios.    Now I don't mind shotgunning the electrolytics (some people bitterly oppose this).  But I agree with Mike on the wisdom of keeping the paper caps in there.    

I am looking forward to Part II.  These videos are like "This Old House"  but instead "This Old Rig." And I will go back and look at Mike's video on the Power Supply refurb.  Thanks Mike.