A New Old Rig

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I thought I’d kick off this news section with the first installment of my account of troubleshooting, refurbishing, cleaning, and aligning my latest acquisition–a Yaesu FT-101EX.

Yes, it was an eBay purchase. I paid a good but not fabulous price, and it looked to be in excellent shape. Relatively dust and dirt free inside, no rust, and no coating of cigarette tar. The outsides are in even better shape: the factory film covering the front panel was still protecting it after nearly four decades of . . . life? Existence?

Don’t worry, I’m not going to get philosophical. But since this is the first HF rig I’ve owned, I’m happy to be messing with it. After dithering and putting it off for more than forty years, I was licensed as KF7SIS with a Tech ticket. I have subsequently been granted a General ticket and a new call sign: K7TFC. It can be no secret that those are my initials. They are but one more manifestation of chronic vanity. I’ll take the Extra exam in a few months. Wish me luck.

Upon arrival, my FT-101EX worked like a charm on RX. A few scratchy pots, yes, but otherwise okay. TX was another thing: no output at all, on any of the bands! I was not worried: I had no idea how long ago this thing was last used or what shape the driver and finals tubes were in. I also assumed sockets, switch contacts, and connectors would need cleaning and Deoxit[ing]. See my rant regarding Deoxit in a future posting.

So, now the project is to partially disassemble the rig, removing the tubes, the band crystals, and the pc board “modules.” So here’s where I am today:

Nice and uncluttered layout