I just got a nice looking external VFO for my beloved 580 Delta. It appears
to be in mint condition but like just about all old TT equipment I've ever
bought, the PTO needs a grease replacement. In fact, this pto is totally
frozen. So much for truth in advertising. I gave up on that a long time ago!
Now here's the cool thing about this VFO....The frequency read out isn't a
dial pointer using a string and elastic as I expected, instead, it's a bar
graph with each square representing a 50khz range. This must be the only
TenTec product like this. Does anyone know of another?
They accomplished this by installing a worm gear on the back end of the pto
shaft which turns another gear on a pot. The pot's resistance causes the
display to change.
The external vfo on these old rigs is really state of the art. You can
listen to two different frequencies at once and with the various switches,
make the ext. vfo either xmt or rx or both or reverse the whole thing.
So now I've got a project and the part I'm not sure about is how to remove
that little worm gear's pin from the pto shaft. I'ts very very tiny. Maybe a
paper clip, needle...? Any suggestions?
Steve
N4LQ
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