I have a physically nice 183D that I'm repairing. Half the capacitors have been replaced previously with "Orange Drop" capacitors, 15 caps remain.....mainly .1uF's, .01uF's and .05uF's. Should I replace these caps just as a upgrade?

I've read that the Power Xfmr is prone to fail. Was their a later Power Xfmer installed to correct this??? A phyisical marking or date code from the factory in later units?

Thanks for looking

Bill KB9IV

I would replace all original paper and electrolytic caps if the radio is to be used for more than a few minutes.

I don't know anything about an upgrade transformer, but I would consider it unlikely that National engineers would use a marginal transformer. Perhaps it was a flaw in transformer design, but that would be the mistake of the manufacturer, not National.

National did use marginal power transformers in those sets originally, no one knows the reason, but they are often found with the transformer bad. There is an updated replacement to correct the problem.

Yes, you should replace every paper capacitor and electrolytic, they were bad decades ago.

See the other 183D thread just below this for explanations.

Carl