Dale Parfitt wrote:
"John Smith" wrote in message
...
I have gotten back into SWL'ing lately ... (ain't like it used to be
either!)

Got a couple of old Hallicrafter receiver rigs and replaced the front
end tubes with some GaAs semi circuits, done on a pcb board and serves
as a direct replacement for the tubes--except for the need of filament
current, they are "work-a-likes" ... gawd, bet those old boys wish they
would've have had those when they engineered the rigs ... I just love
the look of these old "solid" rigs! (solid as in "weighs a ton!)

I am interested in anyone else who has "tweaked" old rigs with various
"kludges" and gotten good results? Comments? Advise? Construction?
Results? Ideas? Unique construction? Anything? ...

Some years ago, I worked on a project to replace tubes in a receiver with
fetrons. The problem was that the fetron had to be designed for a
particular spot in the radio. For example, we couldn't find a design for a
5763 replacement that would work in any socket in the radio that used a
5763. We had to design a fetron for every circuit use--rf amp with agc, rf
amp without agc, etc. even though the tubes could be taken from stock and
plugged in any hole. In the end, some of the circuits remained with tubes.

You will have a lot of fun doing that conversion, but it will be a lot of
work to get optimum performance.