Well, I got a call from Yaesu about my FT-857D. They told me the main board would have to be replaced and the cost would be around $650.? That's more than I paid for the radio. I wonder if there is someone who can repair it at the component level for a lot less?

Zack W9SZ

On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 6:57 PM Zack Widup <w9sz.zack@...> wrote:

I went to my favorite hilltop in EN50rl for CQWW VHF, managed to get the 6 and 2 meter Yagi antennas set up in the hot sun (the 6 meter Yagi is BIG), hooked everything up and it seemed to be doing fine. Antennas were working and SWR was good. I called several people over about a half an hour on 6 meters with my FT857D. None of them seemed to hear me. I was only running 10 watts as a QRP Portable Hilltopper. Then I saw smoke come out of the rig and then no power came out. It still received OK. I checked both 50 and 144 MHz and had no power output on either band. So I took everything down and went home (a 45 minute drive).

The rig did quite well up till now. I used it in the June VHF contest. I don't feel like digging into it right now to see what went bad. I'm sure I can repair it if I can get the parts.

I only had today from about 1 to 6 pm CDT to participate. I can't be on tomorrow. But I'm sad that I didn't make even one QSO.

73, Zack W9SZ

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