Don't you love the golden screwdriver operators Peter? Good job at tracking the issues down. Yes lots of wires in the old rigs. Thanks for the mention also my friend. Thumbs up and catch you next time.
It's nice that you can determine the failure by checking the frequency with a frequency counter. You determined the area to look at just from a simple test. I realized that in the middle of the video that it just might be the ALC since the voltage is low at the MOSFET IF amp. The ALC could limit the voltage to the IF amp. Once again, the bubba with the "golden screwdriver" has left his mark. I cannot fathom a tech would not know his emitter, base and collector orientation. W Rusty Lane K9POW in eastern Tennessee
I enjoyed watching this video. If I were the owner, I'd just use it as it is and be happy you could fix it again. Keep the old stuff going! Great job. I learned some things. :)
It is nice every once in a while to have a challenging repair, but having said that it's so much easier with an "easy one!" Just finished repairing a very old Cushman CE-15 Spectrum Monitor that I got this week and fortunately the only thing wrong was a misaligned coupler on the on/off/volume switch; of course that took a few hours to diagnose and repair so there was some fun involved! TNX Peter for sharing! 73 - Dino KL0S
Thanks for another very interesting video Peter, keep up the good work. By the way, here in England, if something is fitted the wrong way round, we say it has been fitted "Arse in front" :O Warmest regards, Wayne and Nina.
Great repair Peter, it's no easy to put hands in radios as that; very nice to understand the logic way (thanks frequency counter) to identify the problem in 1st mixer stage or IF amplifier or ALC. Compliments !!! 73s de IW0HEX Pasquale.
Hi Pasquale, yeah it is always good to have the right tool that makes things much easier..But you are right it is still a challenge. Thanks for watching and comment my friend. 73
Hi Peter. Great video it has given me a starting point to look at my old 290R. As others have said after about the rig starts working. So i will be looking at the caps to see if that fixes the problem.
Hi Peter, very informative video. Like a detective, you used each clue to find the mistake and made it look simple. I think you had a feeling at the beginning it would likely be that device by the way you went through each test. Good one. 73
Hi Larry, well yes you should always have a rough idea at the beginning and then for sure your approach is a little bit like a detective....Thanks for stopping by 73
First, you have the coolest shirts! Secondly, that level meter with the hybrid LCD, analog needle is so incredibly useful! That is a great design (could use a light, though). Nice troubleshooting. Thanks for sharing.
the FT290R is still a great radio, it has a rudimentary but very effective PLL , which is also a lot quieter than the newer generation PLLs. You don't need to recap all the radio. Change the capacitors in the minus 6.8 volt converter, the AGC section and the backup battery section. And realign all the oscillators. It will work many years after this flawlessly.
Nice effort Peter. I fully agree without the full service manual its hard to measure signals. There are allot of people out there that would just guess Peter and thats why u had that repair to attempt in the first place because the person before u guessed and got it wrong. It is possible to repair stuff without service information but it takes a very long time trying to reverce engineer circuits and it still takes allot of experience. Well done Peter u did well with this job with the information u had.
I enjoy your Videos, this is much more interesting then Television. Amazing Videos Peter ! Thumbs UP !!! weiter so PS. I love this CMT from Rhode und Schwarz, because i get one in my company a long time ago ;-)
Really interesting repair Peter did very well with the poor documents...If you get the time at the end of your videos do try and do an on air recieve test....Just puts the icing on the cake...hi hi cheers
Hi Peter, i think these radios have a high low power switch on somewhere, 2.5 watts and something like about 0.5 watts....so you can use with the internal batteries on low power...Fred.
I should still have the same yaesu somewhere in the to repair box. Remember it had problems with the PCB through connections of the double sided controller / display board. I've started to rebuild it on a new PCB, but it was too much work to get it done. Seeing this video makes me think if I should make a new PCB layout for it and produce it in a small amount or not. First thing to do is find the unit and the rest of its internals. ;-) 73 de PA3FUS.
Hi Peter, You sure had a difficult time with this one, especially when there was another pair of hands in there first. At least you have it working now. I think you made the correct decision in staying away from restoring this radio. WB3BJU
Ah Peter, don't you just love the older radios with nice big wiring harnesses hiding parts ?. Then you have some Muppet fitting transistors backwards, makes you wish you'd stayed in bed some days. Nicely found though.
Where did you connnect the frequency counter to measure the 134.47MHz? I assume it was not the antenna jack as this would give the final Tx frequency of 145.27MHz.
Great repair Peter you sound a little disappointed that it was to easy. Say you were to replace some capacitors do you believe the frequency drift would require some alignment. And at what stage of the radio would you start to replace and align? Does the manual you have have an align procedure and test point for servicing. Let's hope next time the repair will be a little more complicated. Cheers from Canada :>}
Hi Tom, well yes i could have been easy but looking for components and test points was really painful..I would only swap out the electrolytic s. Beware of changing caps around the VCO and the PLL. Alignment should be done according the manual.. Thanks for watching 73
Hi Peter i have a FT 290 as well, bought in 1983, i dont use it often, when i put it on the S meter goes right up to 9 on recieve, like that one, if i leave it on about 1 hour it comes down to S 1, so think might have same problem...it transmits ok...Fred g4vvq.
I had the same problem after the set was in a drawer for 11 years. The S-meter stayed on the right side and the receive was terrible. When I lowered the 12 volts to 9 volt the radio started to work again. It had something to do with the caps. After I did leaved the radio on for days the radio came back to live and worked on 12 volt again Everything works fine now and on frequency. When I am on a holiday and come back after 3 weeks, I have the turn the radio on and after 15 minutes it works perfect again. Actually, I should recapping but considering the age (mine is from late 1981) and the many wires, I will not do that. The radio works everyday and is tuned on a local repeater.
Nice video again! Have one small question: is s9 on vhf not 93dBm? I do read different explanation for it but wiki say 93dBm for vhf according IARU. I'm confused
Thank you Robert! Well we had a replacement transistor which is basically not wrong but according to the schematic pins were mixed up. That can easily happy with a replacement typ. So nothing special to figure it out. 73
spell correction. "Restoration" not resat.... lol. but on that note another great video i'm always happy to see the older equipment gone over and put back on air again
Hi again Peter if mine in on max S Meter, S9 all the time on recieve do you think its to do with the ALC/AGC transistor circuit?? mine does drop down after about 1 hour, Fred g4vvq
Enjoyed this video, thank you! Sometimes it is easy to find a problem but also easy to be distracted and screw up the easiest thing, this was the case with this radio. When you said someone else had replaced it i first thought about cold solder joints but no, they had put the transistor in backwards. Happened to me too, more times than i care to remember. :D I do not repair radios for a living, i repair computers and laptops as my day job, but i do mess around with transmitters every now and then, i build them myself. I do not have proper RF test gear but from various resources like your and Paul's and others' videos and also my imagination and electronics knowledge, i have built several devices that help bridge the gap between theory and circuit, without burning the wallet. Besides my dual 50MHz analog oscilloscope I now have my own dummy load with power meter, RF probe for multimeter, RF inductance meter (my own design) and SWR meter (ludens.cl/Electron/swr/swr.html). I am now able to build no-tune, broadband linear amplifiers with better than 1dB flatness across the band of interest, something i could only dream of just 1 year ago. Some have commented that you repeat things too much. I personally like your style of explaining, sometimes it is long winded but it helps overcome the language barrier, especially when the viewers are also non native English speakers. Also it is good for learning, hearing the same thing several times helps to memorize it. Also the repeating makes me fall asleep easily, i usually watch videos before bed and sometimes fall asleep and wake up to something totally different (have to turn autoplay off) whereas if i watch Mr. Carlson i have to pay attention to everything so i don't fall asleep until the end haha.Regards once again,Andrei from Romania
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Nice repair again again Peter. Thanks for sharing it with us. Robert
Don't you love the golden screwdriver operators Peter? Good job at tracking the issues down. Yes lots of wires in the old rigs. Thanks for the mention also my friend. Thumbs up and catch you next time.
LOL. oh yes Buddy :^) Thanks for stopping by my fried 73
Hi Peter, I sent you a message about something. I know you do not get time to answer them but had no other way to ask. Buddy
That is "Golden Incompetence" guy, the "Golden Screwdriver" guy was busy that day.
Great video, I feel you got a little bit lucky with all that wiring
I love seeing repairs on solid state radios from the 80s. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for feed-back 73
It's nice that you can determine the failure by checking the frequency with a frequency counter. You determined the area to look at just from a simple test. I realized that in the middle of the video that it just might be the ALC since the voltage is low at the MOSFET IF amp. The ALC could limit the voltage to the IF amp. Once again, the bubba with the "golden screwdriver" has left his mark. I cannot fathom a tech would not know his emitter, base and collector orientation. W Rusty Lane K9POW in eastern Tennessee
I enjoyed watching this video. If I were the owner, I'd just use it as it is and be happy you could fix it again. Keep the old stuff going! Great job. I learned some things. :)
As usual another interesting video!, thank you Peter for sharing your knowledge with us.
Thanks again!!!
73's
Thank you Justin! 73
It is nice every once in a while to have a challenging repair, but having said that it's so much easier with an "easy one!" Just finished repairing a very old Cushman CE-15 Spectrum Monitor that I got this week and fortunately the only thing wrong was a misaligned coupler on the on/off/volume switch; of course that took a few hours to diagnose and repair so there was some fun involved! TNX Peter for sharing! 73 - Dino KL0S
LOL yes Dino that is right and even easy repair can consume time.... Thanks for stopping by 73
Thanks for another very interesting video Peter, keep up the good work. By the way, here in England, if something is fitted the wrong way round, we say it has been fitted "Arse in front" :O Warmest regards, Wayne and Nina.
Hi Nina, ah okay very appreciated to get some advices hope that my English will get better and better. Thanks for watching 73
Great repair Peter, it's no easy to put hands in radios as that; very nice to understand the logic way (thanks frequency counter) to identify the problem in 1st mixer stage or IF amplifier or ALC. Compliments !!! 73s de IW0HEX Pasquale.
Hi Pasquale, yeah it is always good to have the right tool that makes things much easier..But you are right it is still a challenge. Thanks for watching and comment my friend. 73
Hi Peter. Great video it has given me a starting point to look at my old 290R. As others have said after about the rig starts working. So i will be looking at the caps to see if that fixes the problem.
Hi Darren, thanks for feed-back and best luck for your project! 73
Hi Peter, very informative video. Like a detective, you used each clue to find the mistake and made it look simple. I think you had a feeling at the beginning it would likely be that device by the way you went through each test. Good one. 73
Hi Larry, well yes you should always have a rough idea at the beginning and then for sure your approach is a little bit like a detective....Thanks for stopping by 73
I knew you were going to say that! Good thing you have a silver screwdriver : ) You gave the old girl new life
LOL yeah that it Darryl :^) Thanks for watching 73
First, you have the coolest shirts! Secondly, that level meter with the hybrid LCD, analog needle is so incredibly useful! That is a great design (could use a light, though). Nice troubleshooting. Thanks for sharing.
LOL yeah finest Italian quality hihi. Yes the R&S level meter is really a useful meter. Thanks for watching 73
I especially meant that the meter movement itself, the way it combines analog and digital, is really nifty!
the FT290R is still a great radio, it has a rudimentary but very effective PLL , which is also a lot quieter than the newer generation PLLs. You don't need to recap all the radio. Change the capacitors in the minus 6.8 volt converter, the AGC section and the backup battery section. And realign all the oscillators. It will work many years after this flawlessly.
Thanks for watching 73
Nice effort Peter. I fully agree without the full service manual its hard to measure signals. There are allot of people out there that would just guess Peter and thats why u had that repair to attempt in the first place because the person before u guessed and got it wrong. It is possible to repair stuff without service information but it takes a very long time trying to reverce engineer circuits and it still takes allot of experience. Well done Peter u did well with this job with the information u had.
Hi Gary, yes I fully agree that problem is really the time..Thanks for watching 73
Well done!
I had a couple of these in the late 1980's and had to work on one that had low transmit audio, no fun at all.
Thanks for feed-back Steve. 73
As always Great video and repair, thank you for the video
Thank you Dennis 73
I enjoy your Videos, this is much more interesting then Television.
Amazing Videos Peter !
Thumbs UP !!! weiter so
PS. I love this CMT from Rhode und Schwarz, because i get one in my company a long time ago ;-)
Thank you Thomas, freue mich das es dir gefällt 73
Really interesting repair Peter did very well with the poor documents...If you get the time at the end of your videos do try and do an on air recieve test....Just puts the icing on the cake...hi hi cheers
Hi and thanks for feed-back. Yeah on air test is cool but my videos a always so long that I have always complaints on the lengths... Cheers
excellent video sir wow i love your workshop
Thank you 73
Nice approach and repair Peter. :)
Thank you Grant 73
well done Peter keep up the great work
Thank you Joe 73
I have one of these units and this was very useful to me. Embarrassing for the repair man who put the transistor in the wrong way round!
Hi Peter, i think these radios have a high low power switch on somewhere, 2.5 watts and something like about 0.5 watts....so you can use with the internal batteries on low power...Fred.
Nice one Peter, again it goes to show what a pain a simple fault can be especially if made my man (or is that aGolden Screwdriver)
LOL yes that is the golden screwdriver hihi. But you are right it is very painful..Thanks for watching 73
I should still have the same yaesu somewhere in the to repair box. Remember it had problems with the PCB through connections of the double sided controller / display board. I've started to rebuild it on a new PCB, but it was too much work to get it done. Seeing this video makes me think if I should make a new PCB layout for it and produce it in a small amount or not. First thing to do is find the unit and the rest of its internals. ;-) 73 de PA3FUS.
Hi and thanks for watching. Good luck with your project 73
Good info Sir thanks for sharing with us.
Thanks Wade! 73
Hi Peter,
You sure had a difficult time with this one, especially when there was another pair of hands in there first. At least you have it working now. I think you made the correct decision in staying away from restoring this radio.
WB3BJU
That is true Donald! Thanks for watching 73
A great little radio. I had one many years ago. G4IWR.
Right a nice radio...Thanks for watching 73
Great video! Gave me some insight to the FT290R. Thank you.
Burt, K6OQK
Glad that you like it Burt. Thanks for watching 73
You'll notice, Peter, that there is no Mutec front end. This would wake this baby up. Tony.
Ah Peter, don't you just love the older radios with nice big wiring harnesses hiding parts ?. Then you have some Muppet fitting transistors backwards, makes you wish you'd stayed in bed some days. Nicely found though.
Oh yes Andy, old technique is simply amazing.. Thanks for watching 73
Where did you connnect the frequency counter to measure the 134.47MHz? I assume it was not the antenna jack as this would give the final Tx frequency of 145.27MHz.
Great repair Peter you sound a little disappointed that it was to easy. Say you were to replace some capacitors do you believe the frequency drift would require some alignment. And at what stage of the radio would you start to replace and align? Does the manual you have have an align procedure and test point for servicing. Let's hope next time the repair will be a little more complicated.
Cheers from Canada :>}
Hi Tom, well yes i could have been easy but looking for components and test points was really painful..I would only swap out the electrolytic s. Beware of changing caps around the VCO and the PLL. Alignment should be done according the manual.. Thanks for watching 73
Hi Peter i have a FT 290 as well, bought in 1983, i dont use it often, when i put it on the S meter goes right up to 9 on recieve, like that one, if i leave it on about 1 hour it comes down to S 1, so think might have same problem...it transmits ok...Fred g4vvq.
hI fED; YEAH THE FT290 were really nice radios at its time.. Thanks for watching 73
I had the same problem after the set was in a drawer for 11 years.
The S-meter stayed on the right side and the receive was terrible.
When I lowered the 12 volts to 9 volt the radio started to work again.
It had something to do with the caps.
After I did leaved the radio on for days the radio came back to live and worked on 12 volt again
Everything works fine now and on frequency.
When I am on a holiday and come back after 3 weeks, I have the turn the radio on and after 15 minutes it works perfect again.
Actually, I should recapping but considering the age (mine is from late 1981) and the many wires, I will not do that.
The radio works everyday and is tuned on a local repeater.
Hi, yes most probably the caps...If it is 290rII then it is easier to recap but the early version is a nightmare. Thanks for watching 73
Nice video again! Have one small question: is s9 on vhf not 93dBm? I do read different explanation for it but wiki say 93dBm for vhf according IARU. I'm confused
That is right Michael, but i did no alignment yet. All that has not agreed with the owner 73
TRX Bench ok thanks for clearing that out for me. Already excited for your next repair -:)
Nice job, Peter. How could you tell the transistor was in backwards?
Thank you Robert! Well we had a replacement transistor which is basically not wrong but according to the schematic pins were mixed up. That can easily happy with a replacement typ. So nothing special to figure it out. 73
Ok, I don't know why I was thinking of a multi-layered PCB.
spell correction. "Restoration" not resat.... lol. but on that note another great video i'm always happy to see the older equipment gone over and put back on air again
Hi Scott, thanks for spell correction and for watching 73
not a problem.
73's k7sce
Great video, I always enjoy watching your work .... Thankyou de Gw0wvl...
Thank you so much 73
YES! no PCB layout for ft-290r, it is a problem and need recaps... 73's SEB
Hi again Peter if mine in on max S Meter, S9 all the time on recieve do you think its to do with the ALC/AGC transistor circuit?? mine does drop down after about 1 hour, Fred g4vvq
Hi Fred, it could be an ageing cap somewhere around that area.. A lot of funny faults comes from defective electrolytics...73
Yes my thoughts entirely, it hasn't had much repair work since it ws built, so could be Caps...Fred.
Transistor beineverdreht eingebaut? Der Ermst?
Yepp das ist schräg
oh i had one its called the .. electric handbag .. jeffrey
Enjoyed this video, thank you! Sometimes it is easy to find a problem but also easy to be distracted and screw up the easiest thing, this was the case with this radio.
When you said someone else had replaced it i first thought about cold solder joints but no, they had put the transistor in backwards. Happened to me too, more times than i care to remember. :D
I do not repair radios for a living, i repair computers and laptops as my day job, but i do mess around with transmitters every now and then, i build them myself. I do not have proper RF test gear but from various resources like your and Paul's and others' videos and also my imagination and electronics knowledge, i have built several devices that help bridge the gap between theory and circuit, without burning the wallet. Besides my dual 50MHz analog oscilloscope I now have my own dummy load with power meter, RF probe for multimeter, RF inductance meter (my own design) and SWR meter (ludens.cl/Electron/swr/swr.html). I am now able to build no-tune, broadband linear amplifiers with better than 1dB flatness across the band of interest, something i could only dream of just 1 year ago.
Some have commented that you repeat things too much. I personally like your style of explaining, sometimes it is long winded but it helps overcome the language barrier, especially when the viewers are also non native English speakers. Also it is good for learning, hearing the same thing several times helps to memorize it.
Also the repeating makes me fall asleep easily, i usually watch videos before bed and sometimes fall asleep and wake up to something totally different (have to turn autoplay off) whereas if i watch Mr. Carlson i have to pay attention to everything so i don't fall asleep until the end haha.Regards once again,Andrei from Romania
i dont understand a lot