{"id":2444,"date":"2022-08-20T10:38:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-20T00:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2022\/08\/20\/trigger-warning-solid-stating-old-tube-thermatron-gear-including-gasp-r-390as\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T18:02:56","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T08:02:56","slug":"trigger-warning-solid-stating-old-tube-thermatron-gear-including-gasp-r-390as","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2022\/08\/20\/trigger-warning-solid-stating-old-tube-thermatron-gear-including-gasp-r-390as\/","title":{"rendered":"TRIGGER WARNING: Solid-Stating Old Tube (Thermatron) Gear (Including — GASP — R-390As)"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n
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Look at that. Well, maybe some of you shouldn’t. (I’m thinking of you Grayson.) I found the Charles Smith YouTube channel while innocently looking for ideas on how to solid-state the HT-37 VFO assembly I recently bought on e-bay. Charles Smith has some really great ideas in this area. He solid-stated a Heath VF-1. But he took it all to an extreme when he solid stated an R-390A. Take a look at how he built the replacements for the thermatrons: He used those plastic wall sockets that you screw into sheet-rock when you need to hang a picture. This is real genius. He used the tube filament lines to carry DC to these new sockets. <\/b><\/div>\n

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R390A Solid State Conversion Video #1: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=xhWzX874wYo<\/a><\/b><\/div>\n

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Charles Smith’s YouTube Channel <\/b><\/div>\n
https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCpfh8gxL64qd22RaNPR-QFw\/videos<\/b><\/a><\/div>\n

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He has videos on the HQ-170 (DEAN: Just say NO!) and the SP-600. He also covers the HQ-110, which is uncomfortably close to my HQ-100. <\/b><\/div>\n

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Who is Charles Smith? What is his callsign? <\/strike> Charles Smith is KV4JT. Here is his QRZ page: <\/b><\/div>\n
https:\/\/www.qrz.com\/db\/KV4JT<\/a><\/b><\/div>\n
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He has some great humor and wisdom in his videos: Procedures that are difficult or more trouble than they are worth are called “bugger-bears.” He advises that if your IF cans are stuck, you should “find a way to unstick them!” Indeed you should! He builds a cool jig to hold the IF section of the R-390A while you are working on it. He provides similar protection (with two long screws) to the VF-1. <\/b><\/div>\n

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Even though some of you will have to go to therapy after seeing all this, I say THREE CHEERS FOR CHARLES SMITH! <\/b><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Look at that. Well, maybe some of you shouldn’t. (I’m thinking of you Grayson.) I found the Charles Smith YouTube channel while innocently looking for ideas on how to solid-state the HT-37 VFO assembly I recently bought on e-bay. Charles Smith has some really great ideas in this area. He solid-stated a Heath VF-1. But … Continue reading “TRIGGER WARNING: Solid-Stating Old Tube (Thermatron) Gear (Including — GASP — R-390As)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2445,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,178,100,205,90,101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-evans-grayson","category-hq-100","category-old-radio","category-r-390","category-souleles-dean","category-tubes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2444"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2448,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444\/revisions\/2448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}