Mike,
Good luck with the FT102.  An old rig is very much like an old 
car.  One of our kids had a 1965 Ford Galexy convertible, reasonably 
restored.  What a great set of wheels, except damned nearly every 
time he put the key in the ignition, something needed 
attention!!  Car or rig - if you can handle maintenance yourself it's 
not too bad.  But if you have to pay someone for their expertise, it 
gets to be less fun!  I have had, and still have a couple of vacuum 
tube transmitters and receivers around.  The ham I used to work with 
on lots of these rigs has moved on to different interests so I am a 
bit stuck.  Not too many folks out there with the interest and 
competence to do good service work.  I have received ongoing good 
recommendations of a ham in Texas who does extremely good Kenwood 
service and a shop in Michigan who does very good Icom work so I feel 
in pretty good hands should one of my "modern" rigs need help.
Good luck with your service isues and keep us informed.
Pat, K9JAUAt 09:26 AM 11/26/2014, you wrote:
>Hi all:=20
>
>Well the 102 saga continues. (frown)=20
>The other night she got pretty warm rather quickly and blew a fuse =
>running about 50W into my 811H, in the middle of a QSO. I'm told that =
>this maybe a symptom of tube failure.=20
>I'm also getting some audio ripple upon initial power up during receive =
>along with VFO drift which never occurred when I 1ST got the 102 in its =
>bad condition and when it came back from being restored in FLA.=20
>This ripple and drift takes about 20 minutes to a half hour to settle =
>down. I'm told that this could be a resistor in the VFO but like most =
>things, if your sighted, you could dig into this your self. As I'm not, =
>the 102 is going to have to go back to a trust worthy source and that's =
>NC4L in FLA.=20
>I suppose its no different than if I had an out of warranty FT-2000 or =
>IC-7600 that would have to go to there respective factories for repair. =
>It would be very expensive. =20
>So I'll re_tube her 1 more time, send her down for work and then start =
>saving my bucks for a new solid state rig but again, if something goes =
>wrong with the 590/7410/FTDX-1200 out of warranty, what kind of repair =
>costs are associated?=20
>I think some of you have had your 590s in the shop.=20
>
>73:=20
>Mike VO1AX=20