Tuesday, March 1, 2011, 12:24 a.m. — I have seen these knobs for sale on eBay for years; the small VFO knobs on rigs like the FT-817 and the FT-857 beg for more than the wimpy little (and useless) finger dimple, and an enterprising entrepreneur is creating replacement “cranker” knobs: The replacement knobs are aluminum, and instead of a useless finger dimple, they feature a cranker “appendage” that makes it a joy to QSY!
One of the quirks of the FT-817 has been the tuning knob; its lightweight plastic, and it seems like its easy to overshoot your intended frequency. The cranker knob fixes that; and I’m flat amazed at how much it improves the feel of the rig.
The most difficult part is removing the rubber ring on the old knob to get to the set screw holding the original knob in place; you want to do this carefully, as you don’t want to tear up the rubber trim ring. It’s not difficult, just something you want to do carefully.
The knob replacement is a 90-second job, tops. Even if you aren’t apt to “crank” the knob, the handle gives you an easy point to grab the knob and move it one way or the other.
The seller is K8FF, Wayne Smith, of Aurora, Ohio, and he has replacement knobs for the FT-857. He originally came up with the “finger dimple,” which was an add-on for larger knobs that lacked a finger dimple. After seeing (and feeling) what a difference the knob made in using the FT-817, I’m up for buying one for the FT-857 (should I buy one, of course!).
Wayne is also the guy who designed the CW key thats now sold as the Vibroplex Code Warrior Junior. The key was first sold as a kit by the NorCal QRP club (I own one of those early kits). Vibroplex bought the rights to the key design, improved some of its adjustments and branded it the Code Warrior.
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