As usually happens my brain awoke me at 3AM and said "Hey Pete", activate the ABC Circuit on the HW-32A!
ABC circuit, say what? Not everyone has one but should have one. The ABC stands for Automatic Brain Control and mine is telling me to stop work on the HW-32A!
Yesterday I spent over 6 hours in a hot garage chasing why I couldn't get more than 40 watts PEP out of the radio. I was not successful as I even found the extra set of finals and they yielded no more than 40 watts. BTW in aggregate the HW-32A Rx is not that good and never was.
If I were to move forward with the JF3HZB dial mechanism I still would have an end result of fancy front panel on a radio that does not function to spec. [Lipstick on a Pig, still a Pig!] The ABC says head back to Solid State or build another Hybrid SSB rig that stands head and shoulders above the HW-32A.
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Currently on eBay, Buy It Now for $20
A new Hybrid SSB rig on 20M could use this filter from a HW-101. (You could too.) I have an excellent working and looking template with the 40M Version using the same tube line up. The really good news is the use of the readily available and inexpensive 6JH8 as the Balanced Modulator, which I already have a stock of in the bins.
Add in a few 6BE6's, 6BA6 and 12BA6's, along with 12AU7 and 12AX7 for the mic and product detector circuits and we are close to being there. Probably would stick with the Solid-State Audio Output. The bottom-line is that we have a baseline and known performance so when there is an issue, we have the prototype for reference purposes.
Pre JF3HZB Dial
How the Hybrid was built.
The Italians say it best: "Basta"!
73's
Pete N6QW