Update (11-05-02): On advice from a fellow vintage Kenwood owner (W9GOC), I stuck in the memory battery (Ahem - two .062" Molex pins on a 9v clip, and a "9v" NiCd sticky-taped inside). After the backup battery had an opportunity to recharge (maybe 48 hours on the power supply), the display flakiness is gone. Apparently, Old Kenwoods get touchy about the processor reset if there's no battery installed. Note to other users: the .062" pins do NOT fit a "stock" 9130's battery connector: a previous owner had soldered his battery clip in (enlarging the diameter of the contacts for me) and then cut out the battery (making my job harder). I trimmed the remnant wires shorter, but left the solder on the pins, making a snug fit for the Molex pins to slide on.

Update (10-27-02): Took apart the TR9130 to see why all the display digits were bitwise OR'd with 4 (0100) - Couldn't figure it out, but the BCD decoder was doing it's job properly. Eeek, a bad microprocessor in there scares me. Couldn't find the problem, but while I had it open it fixed itself. I hate it when that happens. While I had it disassembled, I replaced the (burned out) meter lamp with an LED. Now the meter glows in the same eerie green as the frequency display. Haven't quite got the radio wrapped back up yet, I expect I'll be installing the memory battery using .062" molex pins first.

Update (10-21-02): The TE-32 is now installed. I had to drill a hole in the back panel to pass the wire through. Rather than soldering the tone encoder in permanently, I found that I had some .062" female Molex pins around, and they were just about the right size to snugly fit the pins to which the wires generally attach. Quick work with the cutting edge of a pliers made them short enough to fit inside the Kenwood case, and a few extra gentle "crunches" made them a perfect fit around the pin. Crunched onto the wires, with a drop of solder for good measure. WELL worth the exorbitant $.11/ea (that's eleven cents each!) price tag for the Molex pins.

The current TE-32 replaces an SS-32 (or was it a TS-32?) which I was given some months ago (thanks Matt!) for use in the Clegg FM-28 (from which it was cleverly pulled when I got this radio - and then replaced with a TD-1 (Ramsey tone board)).

For those who don't know, the TE-32 is a box (plastic) on the end of a string (wire) with a knob (turny handle) and a switch (flippy lever) on the front panel (vinyl sticker on top of some aluminum sheet) so that you can randomly select which CTCSS tone you want to send. Remember, folks, old fashioned radios didn't have "Menus" so that you could push "function-t" and twizzle a knob and have it remember that on channel 183 you want a transmit tone of 67 and a receive tone of 127.3, with UHF receive on 447.525 and VHF transmit on 144.490.... you generally had to pick a tone in advance, wire up the board to make that tone, and bury it inside the radio (this makes repeater DX'ing hard!).