Restoration
of the Sony ICF-6800W - nr 7 (1980)
1. OLD
I bought this ICF-6800WA (ORANGE) on US Ebay. Unobtanium in Europe.
Problems:
- no PLL lock in SW1, rest ok
- no meter movement
- grease, dirt (lots) and paint on front panel
2. NEW
a. Clean with water and soap (I dont like to work on a dirty radio).
The paint was hard to remove and unfortunately the solvent has left
some marks on the front panel (around the orange text mainly).
b. Start disassembly
Never opened!
c. Contact clean all switches and pots.
d. Meter problem - carefully take the meter apart and align meter mechanism. See other radio repairs.
e. PLL problem on SW1 range. I first thought that this was an alignment
issue, but I could not get it fixed. So I inspected all cap values etc,
but these were ok too. It turned out the band switch 0/1/2 was not
perfect, causing a C to remain // without possibility to align. A few
more puffs of cleaner did the trick.
f. Alignment as per service manual
3. OPEN ISSUES
None.
4. SUMMARY
About 2 hours cleaning and 2 hour alignment.
Sensivity: MDS at 14,1 MHz was a whopping -142dBm using the signal generator on the PL input.
There are small but smart
differences with the 6800W - small mechanical and electrical stuff that
seems to improve the radio quite a lot (local/dx switch, more
intelligent wiring, screws better placed etc.). By far my best 6800,
also nice on MW!
5. DOCUMENTATION
Serial number 30651.
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