SB634 station console display

[John Q. Doe]

Hello everybody, I'm a new user of this newsgroup and have spent
a couple of days reading the archives to bring me up to the
present on what's been going on. My love for Heathkits started
when I was a kid and couldn't afford to buy them. Now it's hard
to restrain myself when I see them at hamfests. I want them all.
However, to the point.

I have a SB634 station console which was acquired with a dead
display. I spent a lot of time looking for what I thought was the
most probable culprit, the Texas Instruments display driver (I
believe its a SN7447, I'm at the office so I'm sure about the
designation, but its not really important for this discussion).
Needless to say I could not locate one. I also tried to locate
replacement displays, also fruitless. Both manufacturers for the
displays no longer produced them. What I was able to determine
was that the driver could be replaced with a very common TTL
device, pin for pin, and the displays replaced with common LEDs.
To use the LED displays required the fabrication of a new display
printed wiring board. I proceeded to design the board. After
procuring all of the new components (very cheap) priorities got
in the way and I've never proceeded with the modification. It
will work. While I don't own other Heath equipment with these
displays, so I can't be sure, most likely this modification could
be applied to SB104s and etc.

  Now that I've discovered this resource, I would like to ask the
group if any of you have had any luck locating these devices,
either the driver or the displays? If so, who has them and how
much did you have to pay? I would hate to do this mod and then
discover that replacement devices were available at a reasonable
price. Regardless of function, I personally like to keep my stuff
as original as possible.

  Now for my want list:
              GR-91: tuning slug for the L1 coil (or any coil),
                     panel meter, small knob (bandswitch, BFO,
                     etc.)
              SB series: CW filter (I could use three of them)

              SB310: pwr/standby switch (probably same as SB300
                     series)

              HP-23 & HP23B manuals

              SB series: Main tuning mechanism (prefer SB101 due
                     to designation logo)

              Always looking for SB series parts radios (cheap)


I want to thank W3DX for his web page which led me here. Visit it
@ http://members.aol.com/w3dx/index.html

                            Mike Phillips, KE4HBA