I guess the title of this post would correctly be “Put away the soldering iron” since I just completed the job at hand.
The 500 Hz CW filter came into today's mail for the Kenwood TS-430S. Unlike the TS-450 I had, the filters in the TS-430 (and TS-440) are soldered to the IF board. The newer filters are plug-in affairs, which makes installing them sooo much easier.
Not that soldering two tabs and four pins is all that difficult. The part that always worries me — particularly on “vintage” (i.e. old) equipment — is breaking a wire or other damage while eviscerating the unit in order to install the new filter. New radios aren't as much of a worry to but, but everything gets a little brittle after a a couple of decades.
Fortunately, the rig came apart without putting stress on the wiring harness. I had to remove the IF board and flip it over in order to solder the filter in place.
I don't know if all of the parts attached beneath the IF board were factory changes or simply repairs, but i was surprised at the number of parts on the bottom side of the board. Having worked as an electronics tech n in a manufacturing environment, the parts beneath the board looked to me to be changes to the IF board installed either at the factory or a service center. They didn't look like hatchet job electronics at work.
What took the longest was the soldering. I have a new 15-watt soldering iron I thought would have enough heat. Well, it had heat, but the heft of the pins were absorbing the heat and making a crummy soldering joint. Plan B involved my 40 watt iron, and that did fine.
Once I had it all buttoned back up, I had to give it a try. Tuned down to the CW part of 40 and found some signals. Flipped the “Narrow” switch and …. ahhh! A nice, fairly tight passband. It sounded really good. I'll be able to operate the rig on CW without having to futz with the Radio Shack DSP, though I tell you, the Noise Reduction on that thing is impressive. It will automatically notch out heterodynes nearly as well as my IC-746PRO. The DSP unit will only work with a single heterodyne, but overall, for the money, its one of the better deals out there on eBay.
My only regret with the filter was not buying the other two the same guy was selling. The narrow SSB filter would have been a nice addition, though honestly the passband on the rig isn't too bad as is. Of course, I've not run the 430 under contest conditions, either.
That's about all for this transmission … 73.