Kenwwod TS-830S
current project December 2025

This is my very first HF radio, back in Germany some 45 years ago.  I used it in the Philippines before I purchased the Yaesu FT-1000MP.  It had been not used for maybe 30 years and I had it stored with Fred my trusted​ DU7 friend.  Just this year I took it back to Australia to switche it on.

I used a variac to turn up the AC voltage to 240VAC.  The receiver works, but I couldnt get any TX output.  The voltages on the driver tube and end tubes are OK.  Next I will need to have my three valves tested, but I will be replacing them anyhow as the output power was already low 27 years ago. Testing the valves (tubes) with the help of a friendly club member who owns a valve test set, we could confirm that the driver valve V1  12BY7A  seems to be not working properly and judged defective, while the end valves 6146 both tested ok.  Unfortunately replacing the driver valve V1 didnt brought back the transmit.


I am still investigating the issue, the driver valve was no ok (not faulty, but also not up to specs)  and I changed it out against a new one.   So far I still have not TX, the driver tube is not receiving any RF on its gates.   
So a work in progress

Current finding

So far I found that the RF/IF for TX is lest arround the 8MHz filter.

HV Unit

Found a broken creamic capacitor in the HV Unit and a charred inductor (green looks like a resistor).  I ordered now the repair kit from K4EAA and some other component which may come handy.  Picture on the right shows the blue capacitor with cracks.

I ordered the HV repair kit and replaced the damaged parts, but I am still not getting TX out put power.
I havent been able to find the cause of no TIF signal.

Past repairs

Yaesu FT-100

This one just suddenly stopped switching on.
Took a while to troubleshoot and remove the root cause of the issue.  
 
A SMD tantalum capacitor created a short, destroying a SMD voltage regulator, burning out the copper circuit in the multilayer CB and many more.  Some A must have flown here to cause this kind of damage.   

The photo to the left shows the voltage regulator, in the process of replacing some smaller SMD resistors got damaged.   Not easy.  

This repair was a pain as the radio is very compact mobile transceiver.

Yaesu FT-100 repair

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There on the top right small burn marks can be seen.  I had to replace multiple of these cables.

Equipment Repair

Tuning Projects
Elecraft K2

So after 30 years my ELECRAFT K2 is back on the workbench for a retuning.  I build this radio while in the Philippines between 1993 and 2000 from the Elecraft kit K2.

This comes after I recenlty upgraded the Firmware on the K2 to MCU 2.04 and IOC 1.09 and performed the K2 firmware upgrade and CW Keying Envelope mod parts.

My K2 is one of the early ones with serial number 453 !

I build i back in  the Philippines and it was my portalble rig.

Somthing gone wrong

So after the upgrade and the retuning, I noticed that the K2 transmit power does not increase linear from 0.1 to 10 watts.  After I removed the KAT2 (antenna tuner for the K2)  the K2 behaved normally.   In Groups.io  I was advised to replace the two Schottky Diodes 1N5711  (D1 and D2) of the SWR measurement bridge of the KAT2 unit.  So far no success.

I ordered the latest KAT2  firmware from Elecraft either the KAT2 MCU died or its some software incompatibility.

More soon when I received the new MCU with the latest firmware.

I received the new MCU this January 2026 and it fixed the issue.  

After replacing the MCU in the KAT2 unit and going through the alignment process again all worked fine now.  Either it was a FW incombatibility or I damaged the MCU during my earlier work.

My K2 is now operational again.

K2 upgrade to a serial interface RS232
with the new Firmware for the KAT2 I also purchased the serial interface for the K2.   I will be working on this project next.  This will allow me to drive the K2 with a Laptop.

By than my K2 will be equipped with following board:

Unit description Firm ware or further info
K2 main unit Sn 467??? MCU 2.04
IOC 1.09
KAT2 1.07
KNB2 noice blanker
KSB2 SSB
KBT2 internal battery
K160RX 160m and RX antenna

K2 upgrade project successfully completed
today (April 6, 2026) I had my first contacts on 40m with my K2 into VK2 and VK5 with 5 watt.

Fixing Gear

Currently, my main focus lies in the repair and fine-tuning of equipment to ensure optimal functionality and performance in all aspects of the project.   My to do list rather growing than shrinking.