{"id":966,"date":"2016-04-02T19:50:09","date_gmt":"2016-04-03T00:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paulcarbone.com\/blog\/?p=966"},"modified":"2016-04-04T13:34:55","modified_gmt":"2016-04-04T18:34:55","slug":"viking-valiant-how-to-pack-a-classic-beast-for-shipment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulcarbone.com\/blog\/viking-valiant-how-to-pack-a-classic-beast-for-shipment\/","title":{"rendered":"Viking Valiant – How to pack a classic beast for shipment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The basement clean-out continues, and today I bid farewell to a Viking Valiant, a 160M – 10M AM transmitter good for 200ish Watts.\u00a0 It’s big, heavy, and full of tubes.\u00a0 I picked it up at a ham-fest over 20 years ago.\u00a0 It was a fixer-upper then, and nothing has changed.\u00a0 The face-panels is a little rough around the edges, but the logo, meter, knobs, and most of the markings are intact.\u00a0 The coils, tubes, and variable-capacitors are in good shape, and there aren’t any signs of oozing goo from any of the transformers.\u00a0 This baby is ripe for a restoration, and it’s about to get it’s chance. \u00a0 \"DSC_0750\"<\/a><\/p>\n

These were available from the mid 50’s through the early 60’s and could be purchased as a kit, or fully assembled.\u00a0 A very nice gentleman in Texas won this auction, and I do hope he posts some pics & notes of his restoration process.\u00a0 I can say in my limited dealings with people on eBay that folks who are technically knowledgeable and really understand what they’re buying are generally a joy to deal with.\u00a0 I stipulated that anyone contact me before bidding so we could discuss the shipping logistics, which I think helps ensure a smoother sale for items like this.\u00a0 Someone contacted me and asked if the transmitter supported SSB; I’m glad he didn’t bid.<\/p>\n

What follows are the pics I took for the eBay sale, as well as pics I took while packing, to give an idea of what’s involved in packing an 80 pound transmitter full of rare vacuum tubes.<\/p>\n

\"DSC_0754\"<\/a> \"DSC_0755\"<\/a> \"DSC_0757\"<\/a> \"DSC_0758\"<\/a> \"DSC_0759\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"DSC_0760\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"DSC_0762\"<\/a><\/p>\n

High power RF is a beautiful, black art to me.\u00a0 \"DSC_0763\"<\/a> \"DSC_0765\"<\/a> \"DSC_0768\"<\/a> \"DSC_0769\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This\u00a0 mechanism is kind of cool: at certain points in the front panel knob’s rotation, the pins in attached plate mate with an angled groove in the block attached to perpendicularly mounted rotary switch.\u00a0 \"DSC_0770\"<\/a> \"DSC_0771\"<\/a><\/p>\n

First, take out all the tubes and individually wrap each one in bubble-wrap.\u00a0 I didn’t mark the location of individual tubes – he’s doing a full restoration, he can figure it out.\u00a0 I did however make sure to group the 6146 tubes as they were installed, just in case they were matched somehow.<\/p>\n

The tubes get packed in a separate box, lined with bubble-wrap:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_5755.JPG\"<\/a> \"IMG_5756.JPG\"<\/a> \"IMG_5757.JPG\"<\/a> \"IMG_5759.JPG\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"IMG_5758.JPG\"<\/a><\/p>\n

layers of bubble-wrap between each layer of tubes, keeping the tubes away from the edges of the box. \"IMG_5760.JPG\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Then the transmitter gets wrapped:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_5761.JPG\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Then boxed:<\/p>\n

\"IMG_5762.JPG\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I slipped another box over this (not shown).\u00a0 In the background:<\/p>\n

– Tek Plugins, 1A1 & 1A4
\n– A\u00a0 Hickok rip-off of a Tek plug-in (subject of a future post) sitting on top of a…
\n– Supreme model 589 tube tester (my first tube tester)
\n– HP 606A .5 – 30MHz oscillator (Free to a good home)
\n– Eico tube-tester, hitting eBay tomorrow (my… 3rd tube tester?)
\n– HP Counter, which I’m totally keeping
\n– My very first ‘scope, the venerable Tektronix 545A<\/p>\n

\"IMG_5763.JPG\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Then brought to the packing store where they put it in another box, with a rigid foam base, and surrounded by peanuts.\u00a0 The resulting box is gigantic, heavy, and unwieldily…but safe.\u00a0 There’s at least 2 layers of cardboard and 6″ of packing between the transmitter and the outside world.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_5769.JPG\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I used about 200 feet in bubble-wrap when all was said and done, plus god knows how many gallons of peanuts in the double-boxing.\u00a0 It cost $190 to get both boxes from NY to TX, including the $25 he charged me for the double-box.\u00a0 This is a close approximation of what you may go through to ship an old Tek 500 series scope, although I don’t know if I’d feel the need to pull the tubes.. maybe just the bigger ones.\u00a0 In retrospect, I probably could have just left the 7 pin & 9-pin miniature tubes in place.<\/p>\n

Fingers crossed for a safe voyage!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The basement clean-out continues, and today I bid farewell to a Viking Valiant, a 160M – 10M AM transmitter good for 200ish Watts.\u00a0 It’s big, heavy, and full of tubes.\u00a0 I picked it up at a ham-fest over 20 years … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[46,50,49,48,47],"table_tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulcarbone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulcarbone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulcarbone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulcarbone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulcarbone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=966"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/paulcarbone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1009,"href":"https:\/\/paulcarbone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966\/revisions\/1009"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulcarbone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulcarbone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulcarbone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulcarbone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=966"},{"taxonomy":"table_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulcarbone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/table_tags?post=966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}