New member intro!

Good afternoon everyone!

Been a subscriber to Mr. Carlson’s Lab YouTube channel for a long time now and figured it was time to establish a presence here.  I notice that first posts get moderated, so figured I’d sent a new member introduction post to satisfy that and share a little about me.

Ham callsign is KD5BYB, earned when I was living out in Texas but now in northern Alabama.  One of my ham-radio pals said the “BYB” part stood for Bone Yard Ben…and being an admirer of stuff that probably should have gone to the bone yard years ago…it fits.  I enjoy anything old and anything that needs and can be repaired.  “Anything old” can be old cars, old stationary engines, old generators, old radios, old test equipment…pretty much old anything I like.  I really enjoy fixing stuff and “cheating the scrap man” as another ham radio pal used to always say. 

I’m about ready to wrap-up a nearly-complete restoration of a Hammarlund Super-Pro BC-794 military variant…just need to solder in a few wires, clean up the bench so I can put the separate power supply next to it, re-install the front panel, and see what I messed up!  Pretty much EVERY CAPACITOR and EVERY RESISTOR in the ‘794 needed to go, they were all leaky or drifted extremely high.  Been working on this ‘794 for over a year now.

Up next on the bench is a WWII-era Navy TCS receiver I picked up at the Huntsville Hamfest this past weekend.  It’s probably going to need the full rebuild, the resistors look like the “old roundies” as Paul likes to say and I’m sure they’ve drifted.  The oil-filled can capacitors probably will need to go as well, several of them are physically leaking oil which means they are about end-of-life.

Anyways, I love to learn new things from others so looking forward to what sort of things I can learn here.

thanks much and 73,

Ben, KD5BYB