Chuck Harris wrote:

I sure am glad you could clarify that. HQ-180A's don't have paper caps.

Are you sure about that? I know the vast majority of caps in there are
ceramic discs, but I recall some paper stuff as well in the detector stage.

The ceramics do fail sometimes too, but not very often. It's a major pain
to find them when they do, though.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"jakdedert" wrote in message
.. .
Scott Dorsey wrote:
wrote:
hi again, tnx for the replies..i did clean all wafer sws
& pots,
didn't clean main tuning cap..have bama prints for
rx..will try
voltage & resistance checks..full alignment sounds like
a good idea..i
have sig gen..1st & 2nd ifs would be difficult because
sig gen calib
not great..i dont think if alignment is my main
prob..but will do all
hf aligns..i'm glad to get back into tubes..its like
restoring a
classic car, but alot cheaper...hi hi. tnx agn..if u
have any more
ideas, pse email me.

Before you touch the alignment, look for leaky paper
caps.
--scott

That's kind of like looking for when Bush is lying...it's
when his lips are moving. How do you know if they're
leaking? They're the paper ones--they all leak...or will.

jak

You need a capacitance bridge to measure the
dissipation factor. The by-pass and decoupling caps in the
HQ-180 appear to be mostly disc ceramic caps. These have
relatively low dissipation factor and are considered quite
reliable but can go bad. Electrolytic caps, mostly used for
power supply filter caps, at least in vacuum tube equipment,
have relatively high dissipation factors when new but mainly
fail when not used for some time. One plate of the capacitor
is s chemical film which depends on the presense of a
voltage to form so if not used for some time the thing
simply stops being a capacitor.
Paper caps can actually be pretty good. If reasonably
well sealed they have long lives. The notorious Black Beauty
caps, as used in Hammarlund SP-600-JX receivers, had a
manufacturing problem which caused them to be short lived.
Actually, they were intended and sold to be long lived high
performance caps and are found in all sorts of very high
quality equipment. I suspect that moisture getting into the
caps is the main cause of failures but they started getting
a bad reputation not long after they began to be used so it
might be something else.
Good paper type caps should have dissipation factors
(at 1 khz) on the order of 0.01 or less and very low leakage
types like ceramic, silver mica, and plastic (polyethylene,
etc.) of perhaps 1/10th of this. Electrolytic caps will have
dissipation factors much larger, however, they really should
be measured with DC on them and some capacitor checkers
allow for this.
My bet about the HQ-180 is that the power supply
filter caps are sick.


--
---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA

Richard Knoppow wrote:
"jakdedert" wrote in message
.. .
Scott Dorsey wrote:
wrote:
hi again, tnx for the replies..i did clean all wafer sws
& pots,
didn't clean main tuning cap..have bama prints for
rx..will try
voltage & resistance checks..full alignment sounds like
a good idea..i
have sig gen..1st & 2nd ifs would be difficult because
sig gen calib
not great..i dont think if alignment is my main
prob..but will do all
hf aligns..i'm glad to get back into tubes..its like
restoring a
classic car, but alot cheaper...hi hi. tnx agn..if u
have any more
ideas, pse email me.
Before you touch the alignment, look for leaky paper
caps.
--scott
That's kind of like looking for when Bush is lying...it's
when his lips are moving. How do you know if they're
leaking? They're the paper ones--they all leak...or will.

jak

You need a capacitance bridge to measure the
dissipation factor. The by-pass and decoupling caps in the
HQ-180 appear to be mostly disc ceramic caps. These have
relatively low dissipation factor and are considered quite
reliable but can go bad. Electrolytic caps, mostly used for
power supply filter caps, at least in vacuum tube equipment,
have relatively high dissipation factors when new but mainly
fail when not used for some time. One plate of the capacitor
is s chemical film which depends on the presense of a
voltage to form so if not used for some time the thing
simply stops being a capacitor.

Good info which explains 'why' old electro's should simply be replaced.

Paper caps can actually be pretty good. If reasonably
well sealed they have long lives. The notorious Black Beauty
caps, as used in Hammarlund SP-600-JX receivers, had a
manufacturing problem which caused them to be short lived.
Actually, they were intended and sold to be long lived high
performance caps and are found in all sorts of very high
quality equipment. I suspect that moisture getting into the
caps is the main cause of failures but they started getting
a bad reputation not long after they began to be used so it
might be something else.

I've read that the paper was not all that high quality...contains acids
which will inevitably break it down. Moisture is the main culprit, but
only leads to breakdown sooner than later. Wax as a sealer was never
going to have as long life as the other parts of the electronics in
which these were installed.

Good paper type caps should have dissipation factors
(at 1 khz) on the order of 0.01 or less and very low leakage
types like ceramic, silver mica, and plastic (polyethylene,
etc.) of perhaps 1/10th of this. Electrolytic caps will have
dissipation factors much larger, however, they really should
be measured with DC on them and some capacitor checkers
allow for this.

Conventional wisdom is that they'll leak sooner or later anyway. Better
to shotgun them and be done with it. The wax will likely melt sooner or
later, anyway.

OTOH, Chuck says there are no paper caps in the 180, so I'd defer to that.

My bet about the HQ-180 is that the power supply
filter caps are sick.

....and should be replaced. If they're not sick now, they could fail in
spectacular (or not) fashion down the line. It's about the easiest
thing to do...replace the filters. If they're not bad now, it's just
one less thing to worry about.

I operate some vintage tube gear in which I've not replaced the filters;
but I realize I'm sitting on a potential time bomb. First sign of a
hum, I'm turning power off...which might be too late. Just because I
don't follow my own advice (all the time) doesn't make it bad advice.

jak

I just fixed up an HQ-145 of about the same vintage as the HQ-180 and
my canned electrolytics, a triple section capacitor containing the two
power supply filters and an audio capacitor failed the "smoke" test.
I recapped those three caps. I did save the can in case I ever want
to reinstall modern caps inside the can, but that seemed like an awful
lot of work when even the most ardent collectors acknowledge that
capacitor substitution should be done anyway in the interest of
safety. Since small radio parts failed even when new and parts
replacement was a normal activity (that's why there were so many
radio/TV repairment around...where have they gone?) I guess this sort
of restoration isn't quite as anal retensive as restoring Corvettes.

Jon Teske, W3JT

wrote:
hi guys,
i am restoring an hq180a. been a while since i messed with tubes,
(abt 20 yrs) am in need of a little direction. i checked & replaced
bad tubes, verified b+ v. 2 problems, may be related??? on top band,
very poor reception, & when u adj ant. control, u hit a spot that
causes oscellation or motorboating. prob #2...on top 2 bands, cw sigs
have a raspy note. not t9 at all. it is a high s/n rcvr 6377. kind
of neat, has spinner knobs, noise blanker, & 455 kc if brought out to
rear apron. i guess previous owner did mod, but it sure looks
factory....solder connections, etc.
would appreciate any and all guesses.
tnx, pete, k2iqk

Regarding front panels... Dee W4PNT (Patty and Dee's Marine) does the
180A panel. He's the guy who also does Valiants and Rangers.

http://w4pnt.8k.com

Regards de K3HVG

"K3HVG" wrote in message
. ..
wrote:
hi guys,
i am restoring an hq180a. been a while since i messed with tubes,
(abt 20 yrs) am in need of a little direction. i checked & replaced
bad tubes, verified b+ v. 2 problems, may be related??? on top band,
very poor reception, & when u adj ant. control, u hit a spot that
causes oscellation or motorboating. prob #2...on top 2 bands, cw sigs
have a raspy note. not t9 at all. it is a high s/n rcvr 6377. kind
of neat, has spinner knobs, noise blanker, & 455 kc if brought out to
rear apron. i guess previous owner did mod, but it sure looks
factory....solder connections, etc.
would appreciate any and all guesses.
tnx, pete, k2iqk

Regarding front panels... Dee W4PNT (Patty and Dee's Marine) does the
180A panel. He's the guy who also does Valiants and Rangers.

http://w4pnt.8k.com


This website shows the last update of Sept 2005. At that time
they were not going to do ant more painting.






Regards de K3HVG

You have made a good start by cleaning the controls and doing some voltage
checks.

I would NOT try to align it at this stage. That's one of the last things
likely to be a serious problem, unless somebody gave the receiver to a child
with a screwdriver.

I would definitely replace the electrolytic capacitors. They are the most
failure-prone components in the radio. Until you are sure that the power
supply is healthy, it's pointless to try diagnosing more specific problems.

In my HQ-180AC, which I restored and then sold a few years ago, I don't
remember seeing any paper or plastic ("bumblebee") capacitors.

All of the small capacitors were ceramic or better, as I recall. Here is a
photo of the chassis when I got the set. It's possible that someone had been
there before me -- it has been a while.

http://www.antiqueradio.org/art/hamm04.jpg

In any case, I would not "shotgun" all of the small capacitors unless they
are paper or plastic. Ceramics can fail, but they are generally much more
reliable.

This article may help you identify different capacitor types:
http://antiqueradio.org/recap.htm .

After you replace the electrolytics, you can try the set again, and if the
problems persist, do more specific troubleshooting.

Regards,

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html