Black Radios

Black Radios Drake radios have been my passion for years. I buy, sell, repair, refurbish and restore them! I'll treat your rig as if it was my own.

Refurbishment, sales and repairs of classic Drake and other Amateur Radio gear.

12/11/2025

The pipeline is filling up. Just received a TR7 for an evaluation and alignment. Still have a slight backlog and I recommend planning on sending radios in January to reduce risk of losing your equipment.

06/11/2025

Y'all want radios? I'll have them in buckets once I get back on this page with my phone!

Right now, I just had someone drop off a B Line, a C Line, a TR-4, RV-4 and a TR-4C that the owner wants checked out, aligned or "pronounced" if too much work is needed.

Just had the owner of a TR-3 leave with his set repaired.

I still have an early TR-4 with an intermittent heat-related failure that I'll need to really dig into soon, if I'm ever to get paid and see it leave the bench...

06/10/2025

Although I’m still active in repairing vintage Drake radios, I don’t post much to this page.

At least 95% of what is posted here is rubbish that FB has seen fit to post to this page. I have no control over it so if it’s not coming from me like this message, it has been put here by the Spam Kings.

Carry on.

01/20/2025

Things are ramping up around here.

If you plan on sending any equipment for repairs, please avoid FedEx. Their system is broken. UPS or USPS only.

03/30/2024

Folks, whilst I appreciate the ability to reach the public using this app, its designers have made it unusable, as far as I’m concerned.

I am still working on Drake sets and do repairs, cleaning and alignments. I don’t do paint shop on the cabinets.

We will be on vacation in June and July of this year. I currently have about a month’s backlog.

The best way to reach me is [email protected] or by text at +1 919.638.1428

Thanks for your support!

05/02/2023

Folks, this business page used to be fairly simple to use. Like so much of our software, it now suffers from what we used to call "Feature-itis". It took me 5 minutes to be able to get to the point where I could post this.

My phone and email info should appear on this page but in case they aren't, I can be reached at +1.919.638.1428 or w1es at arrl dot net. Either of those routes will also get a faster response.

Speaking of "faster" and the like: I am happily retired and I work on Drake, Collins and some Kenwood hybrid equipment at a "hobby income" level. That means that lead times can be somewhat long, depending on what else is going on in my life. I am always glad to take a few minutes to help you figure out what's going on with your set. Once a set is in my shack, I charge at a rate equivalent to $50/hour but I base that on how many hours it would take me if I was 100% working. In other words, it may take me 6 hours to do an alignment on an R-4C but I'll only charge for the 1 - 2 hours it should take me. Think of it as "flat rate" for radios.

Regarding restoration: Ron, WB4HFN, said it best on his page about "refurbishment vs restoration". I refurbish, when asked, which can be a thorough cleaning, with lubricants, as needed. I don't restore, which is far, far more demanding. I can't bring back ugly copper chassis to shiny and I try to stay away from painting other people's sets.

A refurbishment of a 4-Line transmitter, receiver or transceiver is looking at about 5 hours of work, plus any time needed to replace failed components.

I'm happy to help but this is definitely part-time for me :-)

03/04/2022

Bringing another TR-4 back from the comatose. This one is really nice but isn’t mine; it belongs to a friend. I re-capped it and changed out 3 weak tubes. The S meter is still very stingy so I’ll do an alignment tomorrow to see if that helps. I suspect someone was fiddling before my friend bought it.

01/03/2022

Available Now!

Here's a mid-production Drake R-4B receiver. I have brought this back from the dead and it works as well as my nearly museum piece but is definitely not a museum piece. I went through this set and there are a few things that you should be aware of:

Stripped to bare chassis and thoroughly cleaned.
Re-capped all electrolytic capacitors with discrete parts. The old can capacitor is still installed but not connected to anything, to preserve the original appearance from the top.
The XTAL/VFO switch has internal contact issues but is still installed so that it looks original. I jumpered the switch so that it's always in VFO mode.
I rebuilt the PTO due to congealed grease and a bad frequency disc. Upon reassembly with a better disc, I broke one of the (seemingly "unobtanium") circlips that spaces the skirt the proper distance from the front panel. I used spacers and washers to attain the proper spacing.
I replaced a couple of 12BA6's with good ones.
The receiver was re-lubed and aligned. It is working within spec.
The cabinet had really ugly paint. Cabinet was re-painted and looks pretty good. As I mentioned, this is not a museum piece. Believe me, it looks a lot better than it was, though!

I am asking $275 plus shipping from 27253. I will consider international shipping but buyer assumes all risk of delivery. We can discuss this offline. The boxed receiver will weigh 19 lbs/8.6 kg.

Contact me via email: my call at arrl dot net. I will accept payment from PayPal or personal cheque drawn on a US bank. If I don't know you, funds must clear. Communications from this page sometimes get lost, due to the convoluted access.

This platform continues to be a problem for me for attaching photos in the first post. Please see in the comments.

I have more photos, if desired.

I will have some more Drake gear on here soon -- for now, mainly power supplies.

12/01/2021

I'm saddened to say that the prices of capacitors have gone up about 20%. Effective immediately, the price of re-capping receivers and transceivers will increase by an average of $10 per radio. Re-capping most sets now will average $120 + shipping for TR-4 (any) R-4A, R-4B and R-4. The R-4C re-capping will be $150 plus shipping (there are two cans in that kit and a couple more discrete caps).

I am in the process of re-capping a somewhat ugly R-4B (Which works well) with discrete caps and I don't recommend it to anyone. Even with today's smaller capacitors, finding space under the chassis is non-trivial and it takes about an hour more to do. You only save about $15 using new discrete parts instead of the can and there's no way to make things so that you can access everything under there without major rework to the wiring harness.

AC-4 rebuilds are still $140 plus shipping, including parts. I only use domestically-sourced rebuild kits and won't use the imported rip-off kits.

Here’s another working AC-4, with an early rebuild. I will guess this rebuild was done in the late 90s. The rebuild was ...
11/20/2021

Here’s another working AC-4, with an early rebuild. I will guess this rebuild was done in the late 90s. The rebuild was done to high workmanship standards.

Shipping weight on power supplies is 18 lbs.

$150 plus shipping from 27253

Testing two “new” power supplies. So far, so good. AC-3 is in good shape. I’ll post later when it has been through its t...
11/20/2021

Testing two “new” power supplies. So far, so good. AC-3 is in good shape. I’ll post later when it has been through its testing. $90 + shipping. With no load, supply draws 1 amp at 120V which, in my opinion, indicates that the caps are near the end of their service life.

AC-4 sn 42939 (pre voltage switch) $150 + shipping.

These have their original capacitors and I recommend that they get recapped or rebuilt. Doing it yourself takes 2-3 hours if you’ve never done one before and the kit is around $92 from a couple of different sources (AC-3 rebuild is about another $15 due to the metal cage that comes with that kit).

I also will do the rebuild for you. Rebuilt supplies are an additional $150. These prices are without shipping.

This app is a bit difficult to navigate (it has what I call “feature-itis”). If you don’t hear back from me, TEXT me at 919.638.1428

I will rebuild

11/18/2021

This is the R-4B heading out!

Recapped, aligned and ready to go out!

Address

555 Woodland Drive
Graham, NC
27253

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 6pm
Tuesday 9am - 6pm
Wednesday 9am - 6pm
Thursday 9am - 6pm
Friday 9am - 6pm
Saturday 9am - 6pm
Sunday 12pm - 6pm

Telephone

+19196381428

Website

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