On Aug 13, 3:41 pm, BDK wrote:
In article .com,
says...
On Aug 11, 10:46 pm, BDK wrote:
In article . com,
says... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLvYfXh_ZH0
I really wanted one after reading all the stuff written about it when I
first got bit by the higher end SW bug, it really sounded great. I had
nothing even approaching it though, so it would have been a major step
up, equipment wise.
But I was severely disappointed in it when I actually used one the first
time, then even more so a few minutes later when I played with a JRC
NRD-515. At that moment, every desire I had for a 6800 "Orange" was
dead. It took me almost two years before I bought my NRD-525, and
another year after that before I finally got my NRD-515. I still have
it, but the 525 has been replaced with a much later, improved one.
On top of it not being all that great of a receiver, the 6800 is pretty
damn ugly.
Nice video though. Miles ahead of the NRD-535 ones.
BDK
It was a nice radio for it's time, and it ranked above the Panasonic
RF luggables in terms of performance but below a good tabletop. But
like the Panasonic units it is an outdated analog reveiver that relies
on fiddly tuning and a tacked on digital display. After 30 years the
many electro-mechanical contacts are likely to be less than reliable
in terms of performance.
I'm shocked at how much stuff from back then still works fine. I
recently, for no real reason, bought an old cassette deck to replace the
almost identical one I bought in 1971 and used for over 30 years. One of
the direct drive motors died on it, and I couldn't find a replacement
for anything close to a sane price, so I finally dumped it after a year
of looking. A few weeks later, there was a nasty looking, but 100%
working one at the local Goodwill store. Price was $10. Damn.
The one I bought recently looks brand new, just like mine did, and it
works great. Even all the bulbs still work. Not bad for 36 years young.
I recently fixed a Yaesu FRG7 that had died due to solder joints
cracking. They were really easy to find with a Jeweler's Loupe and I had
it fixed and 100% operational in less than one hour.
My own project radio is an old Allied SX190 that works, but not great,
on all bands, except for 9.4-10MHZ, it blasts in, to the point of
overloading. There's something really obscure wrong with it in the
preselector someplace that I haven't found yet.
BDK- Hide quoted text -
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It really depends on how it was used and stored. But I agree, some
radios can work like little 30 year old wonders and others can be a
real PITA because of noisy controls or band switches that only work at
one position 1/64 inch away from the detent.
I had great luck with a Realistic DX150B and speaker. A simple
realignment of the tuning dial resulted in a hot little radio for
$10.00 Same for a 1970 Panasonic RF5000b. OTOH a Kenwood R300 was a
lot of fun on the bands that worked but frustrating on the ones that
didn't.
I've emailed a couple of SX/AX-190 gurus and they seem to agree, since
my radio works like it's supposed to on the one band, it's almost
certainly the preselector, but I can't seem to find the problem. I
changed out all the old electrolytic caps to fix a bad hum problem, a
couple of the "styrol" caps and got it going well enough to barely pick
up stuff on every band, and then spent one night hitting every off
looking joint I could see, and it came alive on the 9.4-10MHZ band, but
remains semi deaf everywhere else. I kind of put if off to the side for
a while, but one of these nights I'll mess with it until I get it
working, and then it will go on the "look at a lot, don't use much"
shelf with my shockingly great modded to the max Hammarlund HQ-100.
BDK- Hide quoted text -
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That's a wierd one...
Just a 10 cent cap and/or a bad solder joint, it can't be much. The
radio itself is in very nice condition, with the exception of some
previous owner stupidly replaced the main filter cap on the PS board and
glued it down with some horribly strong epoxy stuff. It had those twist
tabs on it and it was so tight I cracked the board trying to cut through
the glue to get the cap off. The old glue they used at the factory was
overkill, but that black stuff was like steel. No big deal, it was
easily fixed, but the radio was such nice physical shape it was a shame
to mess something up.
