Electronics 8

I had one of these receivers when I was a kid, it was the first Shortwave I had ever played with. My grandfather gave it to me one day when I was in his garage. I asked him what it was, he told me and then asked me if I wanted it, well of course I did! Did a lot of antenna experimentation and spent a lot of nights in the basement tuning in the world with that old radio he gave me. Anyway, I went in the Navy and lost track of that old Hallicrafters receiver. Then when cruising the Internet one night I ran across some Hallicrafters pages and the spark rekindled my interest. I bought this one on eBay just to relive my childhood. It's an original early S-38 with 6 tubes and the BFO pitch control. I had an A or B model when I was a kid as I had 5 tubes and didn't have the BFO pitch control on it. I decided from the first day I received it I was going to tear it down and completely rebuild it.

I don't know if it worked when I received it. Supposedly it worked according to the seller but I was unable test it as I had my son (teenager) checking the tubes for me and in my absence he fried the filaments on two tubes. He was turning up the heater voltage watching it glow brighter and brighter until poof. He thought it was so cool he did another one! I couldn't find it in myself to get on him about it to much as I did the same thing in my early learning stages as a kid. Of course I did take advantage of the situation and educate him a little on tubes.

- The outer case was a little rusted in spots (of course my wife made the comment "why did you buy a rusty old thing like that" she just doesn't get it).

- The paint is chipped off the upper left hand corner of the case and black marker was used to color it in (I believe the seller did it for the eBay photos).

- Both the main and bandspread tuning was not smooth, it was very erratic, the dial cord obviously needs a little work.

- All covers where present but the back cardboard cover was broken in two but very carefully assembled so it looked in tact.

- Component side of the chassis had a lot of melted wax all over the place, looked like all the old paper caps had melted wax all over the place.

- Seller claimed to of had it repaired and it showed! Hope the seller doesn't use that repair shop a lot because it was really crappy work. As an example the power supply cap was just laying loose in the chassis. Looked like he tried to solder it down to the chassis but had a rosin connection which broke loose, obviously no concept of a HOT iron for chassis work.


Here's some before shots with the case still on. Not to terribly bad looking. Case will certainly need to be repainted. Click on a picture for a larger view. Little scratched, rusted, and nicked. All the original knobs are there and look to be in pretty good condition, none were cracked and all the set screws are good.


Here's some more before shots. Disassembly has begun. Again doesn't look to terribly bad. Dial faceplate is in good condition, the paint on the dial pointers is chipped off in spots, they will get repainted. One of my biggest concerns was the rust on the tuning cap. I also noticed that the rotor plates on the tuning cap were touching the stator plates during part of its rotation, the bandspread plates were rubbing real bad. How could this have worked as the seller claimed? And he claims to of had it repaired too! I discovered the RF and Osc rotor plates were a little bent and was able to bend them back into there proper place.			Take a close look at this picture (click on it for a larger view). Notice on the back bushing of the bandspread shaft there's a ball bearing lodged in there. This had to be intentionally done as it was in there! This was causing the plates to rotate in an oblong manner thus the rubbing of the stator plates.

I completely stripped the chassis down to a bare chassis. Drilled out all the rivets and removed everything. The rubber grommets used to insulate the chasses from the case were in bad shape and will be replaced as well. I wire brushed the chassis to remove all the oxidation and grime. and then started reassembly. I was able to remove the bandspread bushing, remove the ball bearing stuck in there and reassemble. There is a slight amount of play in the shaft but it works great now. I didn't take the rust off the tuning cap as I didn't want to screw it up. I did clean it as best possible and lubed the bearings and bushings, I'm sure it will probably be okay. There is no rust or corrosion on the plates so I'm probably okay.


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