Tram D201 HW intermittent receive solved

[bountyhunter]

Knowing we all love intermittent problems, I thought I would share this one because I don't recall ever seeing it in any posts,anywhere.  I'm not an expert on CBs.  I'm ok with electronics. My entire career has been repairing a wide range of devices.  I'm currently employed repairing multi million dollar industrial machines that are bigger than my house and I enjoy it but when it comes to RF it becomes f???ing magic to me.  
So this hardwired D201 drove me nuts for too many hours. It would warm up and drop receive. Tap on v400, receive would come back. Tried another tube, same problem. Cleaned the socket. Pulled t400 and disassembled, seemed ok. Replaced every associated component underneath, no change. Pushed on rivets, ran jumpers to rivets, checked for voltage at rivets, nothing. So I figured I would resolder components on the small 455khz board. While I was soldering I saw the input soldered to the board and the output. Hmmm. I looked at schematic and quite a few components on that small bd need grounded but the only ground they had was the board being screwed to chassis. I removed board, sanded clean spots on chassis and reinstalled board with star washers. It's been working perfectly for a week. I may add a ground wire. Maybe I'll be able to sleep tonight. 
Do you guys realize when we're gone, this hobby is done. The only reason the hobby is still alive is because people born is the 50s, 60s, 70s experienced the magic. Those $1000+ Trams and Brownings are being purchased by us old heads because we can afford them now. When we're gone they won't be worth anything. Tried to get my grandkids into it. I talked to New Zealand on 20 meters with grandkids beside me and it meant nothing to them.  They play video games and talk online with kids all over the world. The magic is gone. Kids nowadays aren't allowed to talk over the radio STRANGER DANGER you don't know who the other person is. 

[bobcat4109]

You hit the nail on the head right there.

The "magic" is gone with the advent of the "internet".   Now?  It is nothing for kids to communicate in  many different ways with people all over the globe... no strain.... no fuss.... no muss.

When my wife gave me my first 23 channel radio for Christmas (with a Kmart trunk lip antenna).... and bear in mind... this was at 21 years old.....
and was in school for electronics at the time......     when I put that radio in the car and powered it up.... IT WAS magic.

I used to go out after dinner and sit in the car, turn the radio on and marvel at the activity on Hwy 75 north in Dallas.... just 3 blocks away.   This was in '76 so there was a TON of CB traffic up there in the Dallas area.  But it was just the most fun to work that radio.  And the FIRST TIME I ever managed a skip contact....  I was "on the moon".

These days kids don't seem to find anything "magical".  With the advent of computers and the internet... it is all just.... "expected".

I, too, am growing a pile of radios and bench equipment for retirement "fun".   I imagine that when I "take the outbound stage" it will all windup in the trash too.

Oh well.....

[cbrown]

Not just CB, but also the amateur radio community is suffering the same problem. No new young members interested is OTA communications.

Its sad to see, to be honest.

[2600]

Technology evolves, and popular culture along with it.

My parents' generation thought of "short-wave" radio as exotic and cool. Had some cachet to it. Long-distance communication was still part art, part science.

For us boomers, it was a cool toy, talking to someone halfway around the planet, or getting around long-distance phone charges when we were young.

But there is neither mystery nor coolness about long-distance radio communication to someone who grew up with blister-packed prepay phones in the grocery checkout line. When you can call anyone on the planet with a fifteen-dollar ditch phone, the magic part of it all suffers.

It's just creative destruction. What comes along next takes the place of what came before. A successful technology will become a victim of its own success, as the next thing evolves.

73