Hi Everybody, Other than replacing a couple of old caps in the audio section, my Viking 2 is done. It'll never win awards for its cosmetics (due to Hammy Hambone's drilling of holes in the front panel, paint chips, and my lack of desire to fix these cosmetic issues). Last night, I put in the replacement filter capacitors for C10 & C11, and replaced a couple of paper audio capacitors. I put in a couple of 807s that Brett, N2DTS sent me (thanks Brett!!), fired things up, and tuned her up. Yehaa!! I had decent modulation! I also had no arcing (which I had with the bad 807). I buttoned up the Viker, put her on the radio table next to the SX-96 (it sure looks cool next to it - I'll post a photo of my table with the Viking 2 on it), and called it a night (It was 1:30AM, and I'd been up since 4:30 AM the previous morning).
I gave my Viker 2 its test run in this morning's Midwest Classic Net, on 3885. Condx. were pretty bad (80-90% of the time, all I could hear was a carrier out of net control, and the check-ins). Still, via e-mail Rodger, WQ9E informed me that in spite of QRM from a 4-land station, he could hear me on the Viking 2. I monitored my signal, and audio seemed pretty good (albeit a touch midrangey - I think replacing the last 2 audio caps I'm waiting for, will probably fix this quite a bit). The Viking 2 is basically done - the $75 non-runner I picked up in Nov. 2007 is up and running. Wahoo!! Now, I just need to replace those last couple of capacitors in the audio section, come up with a relay circuit, and replace the VFO tube in the VF-1 (I'm NOT looking forward to that, since it means unscrewing the faceplate again, and trying to get the faceplate knob to decently engage on the dial wheel [a total pain], when I'm done replacing the tube). Also, I might look into tweaking the SX-96. For some reason, received signal strength was down in the LSB response position this morning, so I ended up using the USB response position. The wafer swtich might be going bad. Also, I may consider changing the RF amp tube in it, to the one used in the SX-100, to get a little less BCI intermod. I'd like to thank to all of of you for your help, and parts to get the Viker 2 up and running. 73 & May The Modulation be With You, Ellen - AF9J ______________________________________________________________ Our Main Website: http://www.amfone.net AMRadio mailing list Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ List Rules (must read!): http://w5ami.net/amradiofaq.html List Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/amradio Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.html Post: mailto:[email protected] To unsubscribe, send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body.
