开云体育

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. I had been off the air for 35 years. I purchased the complete station of a silent key that included a TR7 (serial #3900). I worked 49 states and 39 countries with that radio as I slowly acquired the rest of the equipment which today makes up my Drake 7-line station. Then, the display went haywire. Thinking this would be a good time to get the rig “spec’d up”, I sent it to a recognized Drake “guru”, who worked on it and pronounced it “good”. Sadly, it was not and after two more attempts, one of which involved driving to his residence with all of my gear, I gave up. Fortunately, I came across The Radiosmith online and sent “3900” to him. Here’s what he did to the radio previously proclaimed to be “up to spec”: Work Performed (TR7 Serial #3900) Reworked completely mis-wired ALC LED circuit Repaired 26V and -5V power supply sections Repaired 5645 KHz oscillator on PBT board Attempted to repair damaged PA block, but still had low output on 10m Display spontaneously began erratic operation **Note** Customer elected to not pursue further repairs and sent us another TR7 “7359” proved to be a gem; easily brought up to spec and now enjoying pride of place in my shack. Perhaps you have room in your heart for “3900”. Consider it a rescue. At $450 plus $100 for shipping via FedEx (I’ll refund any difference immediately), it’s makes for an attractive project. Need a power supply to go with it? PS7 #5028 is available for an additional $175 plus shipping and PS75 #706 is available for $125 plus shipping. Both come with a handy stand that promotes generous air circulation. Photos of “3900” are attached. Photos of the PS7 and PS75 will be sent shortly. Please contact me privately with any questions or requests for more photos or information. Best 73, Joe K4JNG

This is a long short but what the heck, I thought I'd ask anyway. Does anyone know where the original factory Drake TR3 service manuals/documents might be found? I would like to get a hold of the factory TR3 service manual(s). I'm not referring to the TR3 operating manual, I already have 3 copies of that manual and schematics. I could be wrong but most likely Drake destroyed those documents when they stopped producing and selling ham gear and closed up shop. My interest is NOT to make copies and sell them but rater to use them to service my Drake TR3 transceiver I recently picked up on eBay. 73 Mike W5RKL https://www.w5rkl.com

I had a TR7 about 15 years ago and loved it but I sold it to help finance my K3 purchase, which I also love and still have. I acquired a TR7 today from an estate today with the PS7. It's S/N 2713. The thing was pretty dirty and will need a case repainting but seemed OK otherwise and the price was right. Here's what I have gleaned so far: 1. The PS7 doesn't work. I hear the transformer thunk when I turn on the rig and the fans on the PS and TR7 both come on but nothing else. The fuse is good and not blowing so I'll need to fix that at some point. 2. The rig came on fine with a different PS and seems to RX and TX fine but power out was around 170 watts and the ALC light was not coming on. I adjusted the control on the ALC board to about 150 watts on 20M at full drive and the ALC light now works but stays on no matter how low I adjust the drive. I know there's another adjustment for that on 10M on a diffferent board but I haven't gotten to that yet. Power doers adjust down to zero now. 3. The S-meter reads very low but signals sound fine so guess that's another adjustement I need to make. Forward and reflected hardly move the meter and adjusting the controls by the antenna socket make no difference. 4. Some good news is that all 4 filter slots are full which is great news for a CW op like me. 5. There's a big change in noise between USB and LSB looks like carrier balance is off. 6. The sidetone volume level is very low, I have to turn the volume control way up to hear it. I do have a PDF copy of the service manual. The big question is will I need the board extenders to fix all this and properly align the rig? If so wheer can I find some that won't cost me too much? My apologies in advance for the many stupid questions I'm sure I will ask as this project moves foward! 73, Bill NZ0T

Hi to all in the group! While having not fully finished repair work on the low-serial TR7 I posted about some while ago, an opportunity came up this weekend that I just could not turn down - a Drake TR4310 (HF) Communications Transceiver. When will I learn to finish one project prior to starting the next! The example I have acquired (2xx serial number) started life in Africa. Retired from commercial service, it was gifted to a UK amateur who happened to be passing through the country in the course of his employment. He sold it to me for a most agreeable price, in view of it having been in storage for some years, now not working and with some UK repair shop hinting it would be uneconomic to put right. The transceiver is dirty, but in good physical shape. It came with the full, paper service manual, which documents all of the differences between the TR4310 and TR7, on which it is firmly based. The parent board in it is stamped '5 May 1981', so around the time Drake was transitioning between making TR7 and TR7A. I've had the radio on the bench this afternoon. Annoyingly, I cannot find the small Allen key that will allow me to take the knob off the bandswitch (anyone know the size of this?). As a result, I am unable to hinge the front panel down and pull the display board and get to the boards underneath. I pulled all of the boards in the top-rear card cage and have cleaned all their Molex connectors, plus the relay contacts. The 4310 has all four filter slots filled as standard:-) Looks like there is an AUX7 board fitted, with maybe some band modules too:-) With no short circuit on the power input connector and internal fuse intact, I connected up an antenna and applied power. Sure enough it didn't work. Well, actually, quite a lot of it did! I have all voltage rails coming out of the power supply. The display has a few digits lit. Audio and RF gain controls are good. Mode, Filter and PBT functions change the noise in the speaker in the way you would expect. The calibrator produces drifty audio tones in the loudspeaker. Switching between bands and turning the Aux Program knob causes the 'set band' to illuminate and extinguish. On the negative side, there's no MHz digits displayed on the seven segment LED frequency readout for any band. Turning the knob on the (synthesised - yeah, like an RV75!) internal VFO causes some change to the last three right-hand digits, but does not look correct. I think the number one issue is lack of VHF local oscillator injection. I plugged in an RV7 external VFO and got no better results. I'm looking forward to getting this one going and will post updates to this thread once I get further down the line. One thing I am already enjoying is how much easier it seems to be to get to everything in the radio, compared to a TR7, especially the RF HPF and LPF assemblies (hope I will not have cause to go there). Should any other 4310 owners wish to chip in and share their experiences, please feel free. Regards, Mark.