Station

My latest passion would be restoring (and using) Drake amateur radios,
it started after I bought a Drake T-4XC transmitter, it wasn't my first tube radio but the design really got me hooked.
After a month or so, I bought another T-4XC together with a R-4B receiver, and a short while after that I bought a TR-4 transciever.
Update 2005-10-17: My latest addition is a R4C receiver.

I'll start with the R-4B since it's my favourite radio, after some polishing, changing electrolytics and a couple of resistors the unit
started just fine. However I wasn't so impressed with the reception, so I changed all tubes to fresh ones.
I also replaced all RCA connectors and changed the antenna RCA for an UHF plug instead.
Following the RF chain I replaced all caps and resistors from the ant.input to the first valve and that really made a big improvement,
I used standard NP0 ceramic disc caps and metalfilm low-noise low-inductance resistors, also replaced the lamps for blue leds,
for the S-meter lighting I used UV leds, it doesn't show up good on photos but the light is really soft and purple, besides this the unit
does not have any other mods.
The R-4C I'm restoring atm have a few mods and the unit seems to work but I need to give it a real tune up.

Click images for larger version:

Tubes currently on the shelf
(some items possibly for sale, mail me if interested. The box to the right are two dussin russian 'new' 807 tubes,
they are all tested in my audio amplifier and sound great, I really like those russian ones... trebble is so crystal clear and bass got a real punch to it.)

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