HW-8 troubleshooting help please

[Bob, WB2UJD]

Hello folks,

Well I spoke too soon about my HW-8 being fully functional.  The 80M het
oscillator will not oscillate (again).

Previously, I had touched up a bunch of connection in and around the het
oscillator and xtal switching circuitry (seems the original builder was less
than "great" at soldering) and suddenly the 80M het oscillator came alive
(along with the many "birdies" or dead carriers closely spaced across the
band issue I mentioned in my previous email).  I do not think the birdies
issue and the flaky 80M het oscillator are related, I think it might be
nearby AM stations as one of the articles in Mike Bryce's handbook indicated,
I mention this "other" issue just in case and in the interest of being
complete.

Along with the touch up soldering, I had checked the switching diodes to make
sure they were good and that multiple xtal's were not being connected at once
via a bad switch, tried another 80M het osc xtal, took the tank can out and
apart looking for something (although other than a bad parallel cap
connection what could be wrong?, it passes DC, the slug was intact, etc..).
Honestly, I am stumped by this and not sure what to try except maybe another
het osc transistor and/or swapping switching diodes from another band to see
if the problems follows.

Anyone ever have this problem?

For that matter and while I am asking, how about C14, C17, C21 and C23 for
L5-8 all wanting to be loose for max Rx signal?  I could see this happening
with 80 and 40M padding (fixed) caps drifting (but would they go high?), but
20 and 15M do not have padding caps.  I am thinking that Q1 is wanting
different tuning for some reason.  The source voltage is a little high (1.2V
rather than .9V) indicating a little more current than called for.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or advice.  My restored HW-8 looks
gorgeous and is ready to be buttoned up, except for these pesky problems!

BTW, the latex flat from HD for the dark green worked like a charm, carefully
laid on a couple of dryish coats of matte clear over my touch-ups and the
front panel looks great.  Repainted the covers with the correct color and a
couple more dryish coats of matte clear to restore the correct finish
appearance and we are talking one slick looking little QRP rig!!

73,

Bob, WA2T

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