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Have finally managed to repair my Kenwood TS930S Transceiver, got hold of another TS930 last January which had an intermittent plasma display, which eventually failed as well, so decided I was going to think this one out, decided that by swaping the plasma displays, I could decide if it was a defective display, it showed the displays had similar symptoms, both not working, so then decided there was nothing to loose and went to the micro processor board which has 4 to 5 dual-in-line connectors on each edge of the board.
This was a little daunting as you can imagine, my soldering skills at this level of miniaturization are poor to say the least, but then on closer inspection, discovered that the dual-in-line connectors were not soldered but plug-and-play, quickly removing them the suspect microprocessor board was disconnected and after making a careful diagram of the DIL locations and the colored wires on each. The uP PC board was soon extricated, and we now getting ready for the actual ‘transplant’ wow we could do this on other defective equipment.. Using the carefully marked diagram my TS930S was then subjected to the same procedures, and the Radio that has enjoyed the calls N6GHY, G4HEW, VE2EGU/W6, and VE7HGH and of course VC7GM which was the first call ever issued by Canada to commemorate the Centenial celebration of the 1st Transatlantic Contact achieved by Gulegimo Marconi on Dec 12 1901. between Podhu in Cornwall and St.John NFL. Well the ‘patient’ TS930S received the replacement uP board, and the power was switched on ! first of all the display flashed and just like on Apollo 13 when they transferred all the Navigation data to the LEM module everything was working, it had taken less than an hour, that same afternoon, Korea was on 20 metres I have a confirmation of that contact with just 5Owatts, it has been in continuous use since the transplant on November 4 , 2007 following a local Radio Club Swap meeting. Also managed to sell couple more Antenna Switch boxes at the last Swap Meet, and have a couple of other new accessory kits that are showing some interest, found a couple of Ferrite Toridal cores in an old UPS unit and have used them to make a new antenna Balun matching unit, this allows a really good match between conventional unmatched feed-line impedance of 300 ohms and most rigs which have an output impedance of 50 ohms, this was used on the recent contact with Korea on just 50Watts. Best 73’s and Good DX
Geoff Hancock VE7HGH / G4HEW
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