M0UAW's Blog

 After kicking myself a bit more, I started reading the FT-100 service manual and gathering up information about fixes, mods etc. and waited in hope that the seller would rip me off so I could claim a refund. Unfortunately he honoured the sale and was deadly efficient at despatch. Yay. A few days later a parcel arrived, well packed, complete with original box, accessories and a reprinted copy of the user manual, the radio wasn't in bad shape cosmetically but, never a great sign, the screw heads were mangled from having been removed and reinserted a few times. As a matter of course, whenever I buy second hand electronics from eBay I always check cables, fuses etc. and open the device up to make sure everything is as expected.  Checking the cables, microphone, fuses etc. showed nothing untoward, so it was time to pull the cases off and take a look inside.  Yikes. Someone who no doubt styles themselves as a 'rig doctor' because they own a blowtorch and once worked out how to w

A couple of years ago I decided I wanted a Shack in a Box radio, one with HF, VHF and UHF, something to put in the car, take away on day trips, maybe work a few hills, parks etc. A sensible person might have considered something like an FT-817/8 or the IC-705, nice, small, portable and able to be powered from a battery pack. Except I wanted a bit more than 5-10W and I also wanted cheap. The FT-817 was also out of my price range and the FT-818 and IC705 were just rumours. IC-706, FT-897 were more than twice my budget and nearly all 'widebanded' (code for ballsed up and abused by a CBer, usually with pictures of the radio in TX on 27.555 or 27.78125) Eventually I found a faulty Yaesu FT-100, no TX on any band, VHF/UHF had failed and, it was claimed, HF TX had 'just stopped' but RX was fine across all bands. Worst case I would end up with a decent receiver, I could live with that if the price was good. VHF/UHF TX was probably the SRF7043 PA transistor, common problem and t