Hammarlund HQ-170 Hints and Kinks

Here are suggestions for working on the Hammarlund HQ-170 radio. These do's and don'ts can help you have a better radio and avoid common pitfalls that can result in poor or disastrous results. Comments are welcome.

[@bradleymorgan8223]

My grandfather just gave me one of these when he heard i got my ham license, i'm very pleased that it still works 😅

[@wolfhawg]

Thanks for nice video. 73s

[@diverbob8]

I used one of these back in the late 60's & 70's. Loved it but the one thing that I disliked was that it would drift too long on warm up. After a bit, I inserted a diode in the filiment power output line and added a toggle switch on the rear apron to jump it out. Then I would leave half wave on the filiments until it was time to use it. The warm up went down from about 10 -12 minutes to about 30 - 45 seconds. I used it that way successfully for many years. I like your mods. Very nice!

[@charlessmith833]

Good idea Robert. The solid state conversion eliminates the heat. Any drift is caused by room temperature change, if any. It also eliminates hum, tubes, high voltage and a host of other things that plague tube radios. See my other videos. Some of them address solid state conversion. By the way, the clock in those radios was supposed to be used to turn the radio on with it's timer beforehand so that the radio was through drifting by the time it was to be used. Not a perfect solution.

[@johnc8910]

Although a shorter warmup time is convenient, the bigger advantage of that is that running the filaments at half power avoids the thermal shock of a cold start.

[@jeffgarrett4533]

Great video thank you! 73 KE4EZ

[@charliebell3658]

Charles I enjoyed the video. I recently acquired a HQ-170. It has been recapped and new tubes installed. There were a couple of resistors replaced as well. Audio is working and I am receiving signals on 40m. Someone has used the golden screwdriver on 3 of the 60kc transformers and broke the slugs. I am currently looking for replacement transformers. If I disassemble the transformers and remove the slugs do you think it possible to superglue them back together? It currently only receives in the Both side bands mode. I do not have the test equipment available to perform an alignment. Do you take in outside work? I always wanted a Hammarlund as a kid but never had the financial rescources to make it happen. I came across this one and it didn't turn out to be as easy to fix as I thought.

[@charlessmith833]

send an email directly using the email address at the end of the video. I think I can help.

[@MD0MDI]

You are holding the trimmers too near to the camera so that it cannot focus

[@totallysmooth1203]

I have a 170, serial number 4588 and the best info I can find says it calls for version 5 of the paperwork. I wonder what year this thing was made, and more importantly where I can find version 5. Thank you.

[@charlessmith833]

You can find a manual on eBay. Hammarlund produced issue 1 to issue 5. Stay away from issue 1, Any manual from issue 2 to issue 5 will be almost identical. Most of the differences were changes made around the T1 and T2 transformers. There were very minor differences also. These are 50's and 60's type radios. Not sure of the last date of production.

[@totallysmooth1203]

Thank you for your work. Regards, KN4SMF

[@MD0MDI]

Hi Charles, I tried to send you an e-mil but it keeps bouncing back, hoping everything is OK at your end?

[@charlessmith833]

It is [e-mail] are two ss and the number 1 at the end. Please type it in lower case. It must be exact or it will fail.