"COLIN LAMB" wrote in message
m...
The combination is very good. The B&W has excellent audio
and is very well built and mannered. The SX-101 is a
wonderful receiver and is a joy to QSY with. I used one
for years on 10 meters and it was so much more convenient
to tune the band than the S-line. The later SX-101A has a
product detector, but eliminates 160 meters. With a home
built quad on 10-15-20 meters, I worked over 150 countries
on 10 meters in just a couple of years. Of course the
high bands were a bit better then.

I just started restoring an SX-101A to put back on the
air. It is in good shape, but someone painted the cabinet
a puke silver-green. That has to go soon.

I remember when we took this stuff out on Field Day and
cranked up the surplus 5 kw generator that had its own
trailer.

The only thing bad about the SX-101 I had is that when the
heater came on, while on 10 meter cw, the frequency would
gradually change. At first I thought it was the
oscillator plate voltage regulation. But, in fact, it was
the filament voltage dropping. The good news, however,
was that the oscillator tube was a 12BY7 and had its own
transformer (which was left on all the time). I built a
voltage regulator and that sucker stayed put when my
heater came on.

A couple friends had the B&W and they both sounded very
good. One of them had mounted the T/R relay on the back
of the B&W and when they first came on the air, you could
hear the "klunk". Seems almost like yesterday. I think
they were having a gas war during the summer and it was 19
cents a gallon. Gee, I am almost getting teary eyed.

Calibration is not that good, but otherwise it is a fine
receiver.

73, Colin K7FM
A lot of receivers have problems with unregulated
filaments. After moving to a new location I found my SP-600
would take off and drift off frequency. Not broken, just
large line voltage variations. The cure for that was to run
it from a Sola constant voltage transformer.
Many receivers had filament regulators, usually
Amperite balast tubes. These work but require a filament
transformer with enough extra voltage to make up for the
drop. If run within ratings they are reasonably long lived
but still tend to go when most inconvenient.
There are oscillators that are immune from reasonable
changes in filament or B voltage changes. For instance, a
properly designed electron-coupled oscillator, essentially
the type used in the Collins PTO's, but they are rare in
commercial transmitting or receiving equipment.
--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL