Christmas surprise and a question

[ke0me]

I was talking to my brother (extra license but not on the air), and he mentioned he had an old xcvr he got from the estate of a deceased ham friend of his.

Since he is not active , I joked that it would make a good Christmas present for me since he didn't actually have to pay anything for it.

So, we were back in Kansas City area visiting my son and family at Ft. Leavenworth ( he just promoted to Major). My brother came over to visit and said that he brought the old radio for me. The "old radio" is a MINT condition Kenwood TS-830S.
not Evan a scratch a on the case and absolutely clean.

That's a pretty nice old radio.

Anyway, brought it home and will be checking to see if it works ok, if driver/finals are ok, etc.

Since this has a tube driver and final, I looked for the power switches, one says POWER ON and the other says HEATER ON.

From the poor quality manual I found on line, looks like the power switch must be ON before the heater switch will have voltage.
In other words, the heater Switch is downstream of the power switch, they are not independent in operation.

Any Kenwood folks out there to confirm that sequence, don't want to inadvertently burn out the finals.

[W9WLS]

The 830 is a "HYBRID" transceiver , The "POWER" switch turns on the receiver and quite a bit of the transmitter circuitry.
The "HEATER" switch , turns on the filament supply to the tubes and the High Voltage supply .
You can just turn on the "POWER" if all you want to do is listen , while leaving the "HEATER'S" and high voltage off, but you must have the "HEATER" switch on to load , tune and transmit.
YES, the proper sequence is "POWER" on first then the "HEATERS" .

DO a "GOOGLE" search for the "KENWOOD TS-830s MANUAL" and you should find several link's to it as well as the service manual.

73, John

[ke0me]

Thanks, that is the sequence I thought.

I did find a decent copy of a manual and read thru it a bit today.
I haven't actually powered it up yet, don't know where my brother had it stored, so we are stabilizing the temperature and humidity before we see how it operates.

I know it will not be as good a receiver as my Icom, but it was still a very good good receiver in its day. I probably won't notice much difference except in really bad pile ups.

What I really like is the Kenwood main tuning knob feel, very solid, my Icom is so light I really have to focus on how I turn the knob too much, if that makes sense.

Looks like year of manufacture is not shown, so I may have to do some more digging.

[ke0me]

I tested the receiver portion today, it works, mostly.

Really needs a cleaning from a quick look inside the cabinet. A few controls seemed scratchy. The receiver controls all seem to work, however, it does not have a narrow CW filter.

Receiver seems to have some "birdies" every 20-25 KHz , I can't find that it has a crystal calibrator, so need to figure out what is causing the signals. Ideas?

I think this unit has sat 10-20 years without being used, so I'm going slow on seeing what works and doesn't.

[ke0me]

I tested the receiver portion today, it works, mostly.

Really needs a cleaning from a quick look inside the cabinet. A few controls seemed scratchy. The receiver controls all seem to work, however, it does not have a narrow CW filter.

Receiver seems to have some "birdies" every 20-25 KHz , I can't find that it has a crystal calibrator, so need to figure out what is causing the signals. Ideas?

I think this unit has sat 10-20 years without being used, so I'm going slow on seeing what works and doesn't.

[ke0me]

Oops, sorry about the double post previously.

The "birdie" problem is fixed.

I was suspicious since it was a clean modulated tone.

Read the manual (Very carefully this time), yup, it has a 25 kHz crystal calibrator.

What was not obvious is that it is controlled by the mic gain knob!

The birdies are now gone.

Lessons
1- Read the manual first.
2- See lesson 1

Happy New Year

[NN5I]

I was suspicious since it was a clean modulated tone.

Happy New Year

Modulated? Really?

Happy New Year to you, too.

I would imagine that you'll find the TS-830 fully operational; their reputation is one of being bulletproof.

I also suspect you'll find that it's just simply a really fine piece of equipment; it was top-of-the-line in its day. Cherish it, and use it.

[ke0me]

Carl,

Oops, caught me again, i guess it would be better to say it's is a steady carrier?

I was really surprised that it was an 830, the ham he got it from was notoriously cheap (way beyond frugal) and it would have been unusual for him to splurge on a top of the line unit.

I had the Kenwood 599 series twins (separate rcvr and mtr units) for 30 years.

That was a really nice setup, so I was used to Kenwood units. Unfortunately I had to get rid of it when we downsized to go full-time RVing.

I have found a local ham here through the local club who is going to help me get it cleaned up and tuned.

He has the space and test equipment that I lack.