Eico Signal Generator

[Reece]

I got this little SG and a Heath VTVM at a yard sale some five years ago for I think a total of five bucks. The SG worked but had some hum in the signal, so I knew I had to recap it. Never got around to it but today because of cold rainy weather that keeps me from refinish work on the Firestone I'm working on in the Radio thread here, I finally did it.

The insides are pretty simple: dual electrolytic, little rectifier block, and a handful of paper caps. Here I've already clipped out the rectifier and it's sitting on top of the power xfrmr.

I subbed a terminal strip and silicon diode for the rectifier and new caps all around.

It fired right up and gave a smooth signal. The calibration was pretty close even after sitting around for years. I let it warm up a lot and then checked it by beating its frequency against known broadcast stations on the Firestone radio, which was also cooking away alongside it. I checked its operation at 455 Kc by beating the first harmonic against a 910 kc radio station. I'll get around to checking the higher frequencies against WWV later. Works fine and doesn't look bad for a $2.50 instrument!