Friday, June 12, 2020
This evening I missed checking in to either my Kentucky or Georgia CW nets. My wife worked late and she was planning to go to the lake with her girlfriend for the night, and we needed to unload her kayak off the top of her Jeep.
YAESU FT2000 PROBLEM! YIKES! A couple of nights ago, I ran across the first real problem that my beloved Yaesu FT-2000 has given me. It’s not a huge issue, but has me spooked that its a sign of an impending major breakdown.
When you push the power button when the rig is on, it only partially shuts down. The audio shuts off, the S-meter quits moving, and the front panel goes inoperative, though the lights remain on. Under normal operation, when you push the power button, the rig does this silent routine before an apparent second part actually shuts the DC off. So what happens is that the rig quits working but the power remains on.
The power button is a momentary contact switch; when the rig is plugged into power (AC or DC), DC is actually going to the PA board and several other parts of the transceiver, even when it isn’t powered on. The on button “wakes up” the radio. The rig operates just fine, however, no other issues. I powered the AC switch off in the back of the rig and powered it on with no change, then did the same thing again and did a factory reset. All that did was to erase my mic EQ settings and all my memories; it did not fix my problem.
Next week I may contact Yaesu support to see what they say; I tried to trace the power line from the button thru the radio, and it jumps through several boards, including the Control Board and PA. I’m still trying to figure out how it works, and where the problem might be.
HEATHKIT HW-16. For some reason I have yet to determine, my HW-16 transceiver quit transmitting. I haven’t operated the rig in probably a year or more, but when I tried it recently, the receive worked fine. The transmitter keyed the sidetone, but no power output and no indication on the meter. I’m running the HW-16 with an HG-10 VFO, and it has operated flawlessly since I’ve owned the pair. I did pull the rig off the shelf and check connectors and looked for something simple. Nothing obivous visible. The HG-10 is putting out a signal, you can hear it in spot mode. There’s something open in the keying circuit … or the final gave up the ghost. I need to get the rig covers off and do some checks … later, hi hi.
TEN TEC PARAGON. I’ve owned a Ten Tec Paragon for nearly two years now, but haven’t really had a chance to do more than just tune around the bands.
I bought the rig really, really cheap — the rig is one that had the backup battery leakage issue, and the leakage affected the logic board. I haven’t tried to replace the battery, but I probably should, that way it would keep memories and the time correct. The seller said the logic board needed to be replaced; unfortunately, this was an issue on a great many Paragons, so good logic boards are snapped up quickly when they appear on eBay.
I was a freshly minted ham when the Ten Tec Paragon made its debut on 3898 kHz. Several of the 3898 crowd bought them and tried them out. I thought they sounded great; of course, they were all running legal limit, and that helps! But I promised myself at that time — back in 1987 — that I would one day buy a Paragon. I didn’t think it would take me 33 years go do it, hi hi!
I want to run the Paragon on CW; it arrived equipped with the 500 Hz CW filter. And of course, being a 30-year-old rig, it wasn’t equipped with a built-in keyer. My first solid-state rig was a Yaesu FT-757GX, and it debuted in 1983 and it had a keyer … but not the Paragon. Now I remember buying some MFJ CW keyers back years ago, so I had to poke around under my shack desks until I found an old MFJ Grandmaster keyer. The keyer has 4 memories, which made it useful for contesting. As you can see from the picture, it has many years of dust and dirt on it. I connected 12vdc to it and hooked up my iambic key, and she came to life. I connected it to the Ten Tec and it worked just fine. The Paragon’s QSK is pretty damn awesome, even for a 33-year-old rig.
I’ll check in on my CW nets using the Paragon, just for kicks. I’ve really gotten to where I really like the Paragon’s receiver. I don’t have a mic for it, but that’s ok. Chances are I have a D-104 around the shack that would work.
73 es CUL … de KY4Z … SK SK … (dit dit) …