[Radio Wrangler]

Ian's restorations are a good bench mark for what it takes to do a thorough job on one of these radios. As far as hourly rates go, I think he's about one tenth of what a main dealer charges for work on my car. Once done to this standard the radio can be expected to be back to full new performance and with modern components where the old ones were known to degrade, the reliability is probably better than new sets ever enjoyed. Treat this as the reference price, doing the full thing and paying someone a modest price for their time. With there being a definite date for a birthday, one thing Ian's price buys you is confidence of it being done in time.

Finding someone closer will save a lot of money on transportation and a lot of inconvenience.

Finding someone to act as a mentor/guide, doing it just for the fun of it and for getting someone new going in the hobby, will save a lot of money too, but Stu will have to get involved. There are no expensive parts involved.

Not doing a full-blooded rebuild and just hunting down whatever parts have actually failed will save a small amount of money on parts, but can save a lot of time if the fault is found quickly. The drawback is that you can't be as confident in its future reliability.

An RA17 is a radio very well worth fixing.

Oh, if you watch the film 'Goldfinger' in the scene where Goldfinger is about to bisect James Bond with his laser, there is a whole wall of RA17s and their accessories as the backdrop. Everyone except a true radio guy will be watching only where the laser is pointing.

David