• 2024
  • Oct
  • 4

The Aerovox Model 97 Inductor-Capacitor Checker

One of the things I picked up at the Cleveland Hamfest was the Aerovox Model 97 from this picture:

aerovox97lc.jpg

It was cheap, it was from a Silent Key estate that a friend was cleaning up, and it had a functioning eye tube - the primary reason I picked this one up. Those aren’t exactly the easiest thing to come by these days, so having a few laying around is probably a good idea.

This is kind of an oddball unit as far as checkers go - most simply use a pair of leads you put across an unknown part. This one is a bit different in that it has an inductively coupled loop that acts as the probe for the device. You place a coil with probe ends across your part and that couples back to the checker - no direct connections are made, so you save the device if the part is charged.

Unfortunately, the probe coil was not present with the device - it may have been buried somewhere in the box it was stored in, but who knows…I don’t have it, and seeing as how this is a very low capacity device, it doesn’t bother me. Any one of the Eico or Heath devices is a bit more useful in this regard.

It did include a manual, which I will enter into the wereboar archives. You can download a copy here (this link is hosted on my webhost provider’s service):

https://privateemail … 651f/1/8/NDY/NDYvMjE

I’ll be doing an internal photo shoot of this device before it goes into parts storage, so stay tuned!