Johnson Viking Ranger Pics
August 19th 2002
When I heard that Bob W3TGG was selling a bunch of gear and one of the pieces happened to be a very clean Johnson Viking Ranger, I just had to bite. The Johnson Viking Ranger is one of the neatest little AM/CW rigs from the 1950's, and the opportunity to operate one here in the shack was something that I'd been wanting to do for quite a while. It's hard to find one of these little rigs that hasn't been modified poorly or is just in a general bad state, so when I went by Bob's house to pick this one up, I was pleasantly surprised to find a rig that looked much like it did back when it was new. Bob took very good care of this rig and it sure shows. I took the following pictures while I had the chassis removed from the cabinet. I also had the Crystal plug removed on the front. The only thing that was done to this rig after inspection was a light cleaning including blowing the dust off and cleaning all tubes with alcohol. Also, the rig was brought up over a period of about 10 hours slowly on a variac. BTW Had the first QSO last night on 3870 KC AM with Brian NI6Q and Joe W1GFH and they thought that the audio was very good with my D-104 microphone. It's going to be fun using this rig on the air both AM and CW. Speaking of CW, I looked at the keying wave form on a scope, and it's excellent. Here are the shots...
Front of the Ranger
Interior Shot From The Top Front
Interior Shot From The Top Rear
