[TenTec] Argonaut 509: Exorcist needed!

[JAMES HANLON]

Rich,

Thanks for your story.  I have far more than my share of Boatanchors, so I 
do understand your frustration.  Just yesterday I got my Eldico SSB-100 
(vintage 1955, first generation sideband transmitter) running again.  A 
mouse had nibbled an RFC in the vfo and opened it, which I found after a bit 
of signal tracing and measurement.

I also have an Argonaut 505, old enough if not heavy enough to be a member 
of my Boatanchor collection.  Fortunately it was working when it came to me, 
so I haven't dug too deeply into it.  I did manage to sit the power supply 
on top of the Argonaut the first time I put it on the air, only to have a 
nice hum induced into the Argonaut's vfo from the power transformer's 
magnetic field.  Someone on the reflector tipped me off to what was 
happening, plus there was no hum when I ran it from a battery.

Re your 509 troubleshooting, sometimes simple things can help.  Have you 
tried making a few dc resistance measurements associated with that 10 meter 
coil and its bandswitch position?  That might give you a hint of where your 
problem could be.

Jim, W8KGI