[BC] Maintaining older transmitters

[Gary Glaenzer]

From: "Kevin Raper" <kj4hyd at gmail.com>
>
> . I am talking about the Butchered up Transmitters at some of these Mom & 
> Pop AM s,

FM's are not immune to that, either

add to the mix, lazy 'engineers' who can not or will not take the time to 
properly repair a box, but 'work cheap' and throw anything at it that will 
get it on so they can collect a check and leave

not that I'm objecting from my side, it's a good side-line, finding these 
'our engineers says its too far gone to fix' boxes, hauling them home, 
rebuilding, retuning, and selling them

so far in the past few months I've resurrected an FM-3.5K that 'we can't get 
the chips for the controller board' (10 minutes on google), an FM-2.5K that 
'the PA cavity is shot' (shorted screen ring on tube socket) and another 
2.5K that 'has a bad plate transformer'....(no, it had a shorted rectifier 
stack, but they made their diagnosis and I got it for hauling it away)  and 
a Z-5 'hulk' with no modules and no exciter, but I now have a spare PS and 
all the controller cards and a good spare Z-plane and combiner for two other 
Z's, for a one-day road trip......and sold the all Aluminum cabinet to pay 
for the gas

then there's the 2.5K that was removed and placed face-down on a pallet and 
stored in a warehouse in a rock quarry with no back door for 5 
years......not much to salvage there except the big transformer and chokes, 
and even they are suspect because of the corrosion