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Hallicrafters SX-117
Amateur Radio > Vintage Receivers
Hallicrafters SX-117
First off, thank you to Mr. Walt Cates, WD0GOF for help and his production of new documentation detailing modern approaches in servicing and aligning this great receiver!
The Hallicrafters SX-117 is a surprisingly good receiver. It is smaller than the SX-110 but packs more features, including triple conversion.
This receiver version came with the second run factory upgrades. The second run revision consisted of a single resistor change from 10K to 22K. The third run revision consisted of several changes in components and considerable changes in circuitry.
This SX-117 came in a trade that included its HT-44 counterpart. It sat on the shelf for a few years. I brought it to the bench for testing in 2025 for testing; after a re-cap of the electrolytic filters it did work but needed an alignment. It served as the main receiver for a few weeks until the need for an alignment was very apparent. The run three modifications were done in late 2025 resulting in a deaf receiver! Going back through the mods, nothing wrong was found, so back on the shelf it went. A few months later, it was on the bench again. I went through the "run three updates" again, but this time in reverse order while verifying every direction with the latest version of the schematic. It was a simple mistake where a capacitor between tube socket pins 3 and 9 is removed. The directions call for the new capacitor ito go between pins 3 and 8. The new capacitor was found between pins 3 and 9. Fixing that error resulted in the receiver coming back to life.