Hickok 209A Test Meter
I decided to perform a quick check-up on the Hickok 209A today before getting back to the two Spare Parts Cases.
It only took a few moments to realize this meter was actually not NOS, but a purchase that had been very carefully used and maintained over the years, to the point the purchaser had kept the original shipping box to store the meter in, while not in use. The AC cord originally equipped on the 209A was a rubber cord, 8 feet long, with the name HICKOK cast into the sides of the plug, which was a basic two pin plug. The AC cord presently on the meter is a black plastic one with a polarized plug, only 6 feet in length.
The front panel of this meter is a solid sheet of almost one eighth inch thick aluminum. The case is formed sheet steel with a coat of blue/grey enamel inside and out that has only three small chips on it. The bottom and the back of the case have four feet pressed into the steel and none of them have any trace of wear on the paint at all.
The chassis had the usual accumulation of static dust on the components that brushed away very easily and the clips for the two D-Cells used to power the Resistance function were both empty.
I had a pair of about half power D-Cells on hand that I installed, and I carefully pulled he four valves and ran them through my tube tester. Only V2, the 6X5GT Capacity Voltage Rectifier, failed at 32% on both sides. The other three valves in the chassis came in between 68% and 92%. With no spares on hand, the four original valves went back in for the purposes of live checks of the ability of the circuits to be zero set. The manual gives nice instructions for these tests.
The mechanical zero set of the meter before power up was spot on perfect and that huge meter is a delight to read! Even after a 5 minute warm up, with the wonky valve, none of the functions could be zeroed, but the meter did respond in each instance in the right way. Even the weak batteries in the Resistance Mode gave the correct response, stopping about 20 points off reaching full scale.
On powering off, the meter needle dove below zero on the scale and then quickly came back up to zero as the capacitors in the circuits bled out. So overall, in spite of no probes and leads yet, I am quite pleased with where this part of the project is headed.
The other interesting thing was finding a shipping label on the box from the Railway Express Agency dated August, 1948. This shipping company was a giant in its day; think modern day FEDEX. Worth looking up its history for a good read and discovering where todays American Express credit card company got its start, along with several other companies.
David
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