Johnson Viking Thunderbolt

[N8YX]

...Then there is The Golden Rule of Boat Anchordom, never irreversably modify a classic, for if you do its collector value drops to zero...

World + Dog would take major exception to me, the FCC and the NSA for some irreversible modifications we've done to gear over the years.

A couple cases in point:

I have two Drake R-7s which came from two different field offices. One (Allegan, MI) even had paperwork from the station chief included in its document set. Both have had 50KHz IF buffer boards and corresponding rear-panel outputs installed (my ex-Drake engineer buddy claims by the factory itself).The Allegan unit now sports a dual-mode squelch, inspired by Mark Mandelkern's published designs. OEM knobs and board interconnects were used. Drake could have included something like this in the consumer offering; the real estate for the extra board was already there (and unused).

The Icom R-7000 - famous for its role in taking down Pablo Escobar (so the story goes). NSA bought the things by the pallet load for domestic use, as they didn't have to meet the EMI requirements imposed when operating in foreign embassies - particularly, former ComBloc countries. For that, Watkins-Johnson got the nod - at many times the price. I've seen all sorts of factory and aftermarket/spook-shop mods for these receivers. Most of mine have better (CFJ vs CFW) IF filters fitted, which is something of a one-way process as IF Unit modifications including board surgery are required. Icom could have included higher quality filters from the factory as the form factors between the two series really aren't that different but the cost certainly was. Two of mine have internal SGC ADSP units fitted. I did an article back around 2011 on this site for both mods; too bad the ADSP is out of production as it really adds to the usability of the radio. The other things I'm thinking about doing to a couple of the several I own are replacing the wide FM filters (230/180KHz, respectively) with 110/82KHz parts for improved FMBCB DX performance. A variable BFO, AGC defeat switch and tunable IF notch round out the nice-to-haves, and the PLL/VCO unit's phase noise can be knocked way down with some changes to that assembly. I have a couple non-working boards to repair, modify and test.

Back to the glow-in-the-dark project.

/out