I'm Fred, N8YX. Owner of a couple complete and several "project" FT-301s (both analog and digital versions), along with all the station peripherals, an FT-221 and related accessories.
Vintage gear is one of the main reasons why I stick around the hobby - it's very enjoyable to restore and use yesteryear's equipment. I have several projects ongoing with the '301 line; one is to convert a -D model transceiver to the 8.9875MHz IF used in the FT-901 and similar rigs...the primary reason being availability of filters. Should that prove successful, another one of the "project" radios will be converted and a third turned into a receiver, albeit with extra filtering and interference-suppressing features. Lastly, an external DDS VFO for the first transceiver is in the works; this in an FV-301 style enclosure - with digital readout.
(I'll be posting a "want" for parts for this at some point.)
The last bit in the project queue was to figure out how to program an ID PROM for my FP-301D supply. I ran across Randy's (W7CPA) manual upload and saw the info therein, which confirmed my suspicions on what Yaesu did with the PROM. AFAIK, a 74288 will work in place of a 74188 - just need to see if either of my programmers will support the chip, or if I need to go buy one.
73 all.
